Snappy Retorts, Part One: Lions and Natives and Bacon, Oh My!

 “What about the antelopes? They eat plants.”


“So you model your habits around what a lion does or does not do? How does this carry over to the rest of your life? For example, would you also kill and cannibalize your young if they were sickly?”

“An adult lion also can sleep for 18 - 20 hours a day. Maybe you should go back to bed.”


“So that’s what you’re doing with that KFC bucket? Being a lion? I bow to your ferocity, Simba.”

“Chasing after an ice cream truck is probably not the same as running after an antelope, bro.”




“I am wondering which of the 562 tribes native to the United States you are referring to here. You wouldn’t possibly be painting all Native Americans cultures, communities, and traditions with the same broad brush, would you?”

“That sounds far more spiritually evolved than simply allowing others to live. Namaste. Oops, wrong culture but it probably doesn’t matter to you.”


“Do you also give thanks for climate change, water pollution, and rainforest destruction? Because you are actively playing a role in that, too.”


“Yes, I am sure they appreciate your supposed thankfulness far more than they would your empathy and compassion.”


“I understand how you feel. I gave thanks to the guy I just beat up and mugged for his iPhone and I’m sure he’ll be fine with that once he regains consciousness.”




“Mmm...heart disease. Mmm...stroke. Mmm...slaughter. Mmm...torture. Should I go on?”


“Touché and with those three syllables, you have destroyed any reasonable counter-argument to eating animals for ethical, health, and/or environmental reasons.”

“By ‘Mmm...bacon,’ what exactly do you mean? It is not a complete sentence. Could you explain what you are trying to convey? That bacon tastes good to you? Exactly how is that relevant to the topic at hand?”




“I will presume that you are being sarcastic because Homer Simpson was supposed to be a cautionary tale, not someone to emulate. Right? Right.”


“It’s been at least five minutes since a meat-eater said this to me, so kudos for sharing your highly original perspective on the joys of eating bacon as well as your rapier wit.”

A Primer on Not Offending Anyone on Social Media Ever

Something that I was completely naive about before social media entered my life is how very much there is to be offended by in the world. It turns out that I'd been missing out on so many first-rate opportunities to be displeased or disgruntled, I almost want to do over my life. I've learned that even seemingly innocuous topics have dark and potentially scarring underbellies. With this new awareness, it can be difficult to know what to share that won’t upset the people who see it. Last week, for example, I shared a seemingly anodyne link to a video of some unbelievably cute baby sloths - who could find something wrong with that? - forgetting that there is always, always something to fret about. I was informed that videos like this are worrisome, potentially helping to fuel a new exotic pet trade of sloths. I realize that the intention is good; the person was expressing a legitimate concern. The fact is, though, that there is very little one can post today that is considerate of every unique sensitivity, concern, or bone of contention of each individual who might encounter it. Thus I have decided to create a list of all those things I will no longer share so as to best avoid offending or upsetting anyone. I hope this also helps others to create the most unoffensive and controversy-free posts as we venture bravely forth in social media. Onward!



1. I will post no more photos of pretty landscapes. What if someone is allergic to grass, trees, or sunlight, or is scared of the outdoors due to an insect phobia and has become a virtual shut-in? What if someone who works in an office sees the photo and decides that he hates being inside all day so he quits his job and then his whole family becomes destitute and homeless with his kids ending up in the foster care system? He would be justified in blaming me for breaking up his family by sharing a photo of a pretty landscape. 


2. I will post no more vegan food photos with anything potentially controversial in it because it might offend someone who has a dislike for that food, an allergy to it or simply is counter to that person’s dietary beliefs. I have learned that cilantro, eggplant, okra, mushrooms, soy, wheat, grains, oil, chocolate, sugar, and salt are among the problematic items, and not including enough greens in each food photo is also grounds for offending viewers. Nightshades, cooked foods, and anything that isn’t macrobiotic must also be barred so as to be the most inclusive possible. I will also no longer include images of plates, bowls, or cutlery to be more sensitive to those who have had to sell all their plates, bowls, and cutlery to pay their rent. I need to be more considerate of every variable that may have ever occurred in anyone’s life. 



3. Anything that’s funny, serious, uplifting, or neutral must be treated with the utmost care and consideration before posting, and ideally should be vetted first before a diverse counsel of advisers.



4. I will post no more cute photos or videos with puppies and/or kittens. Baby animals drive the breeding market. I should only share videos with adult dogs and cats because they are harder to adopt.



5. I will post no more cute photos or videos with adult dogs and/or cats. What if a cat scratched someone’s arm and it got infected and that person had to have it amputated or someone’s parents gave away her dog when she was a child and she has so many unresolved feelings around that? Also, what if someone who sees the image lives in an apartment where no companion animals are allowed and that person desperately wants a dog or a cat? It would make them feel sad and that would be all my fault.

6. I will not post anything about my son, a.k.a, the resource-swallowing, first world, arrogant, consuming machine who is the end result of my stubborn selfishness and vanity. Domestic and international adoption is also a risky topic. As is not having children. Let’s just pretend that children never existed, okay? 



7. I need to be more mindful of seemingly innocuous stories that might potentially trigger someone, for example, that recent trip to the grocery store: What if someone reading it was rear-ended in the parking lot last week while grocery shopping and I reactivated up his PTSD? What if the person seeing it tried a sample of watermelon at the grocery store and got food poisoning and was sick for three days and had to miss her son’s graduation? What if someone can’t reach the highest shelf and so the grocery store is a disempowering and frustrating experience for her? What someone who sees it ran into his daughter’s homeroom teacher at the grocery store recently and was coming from Hot Yoga so he looked and smelled kind of gross and my story reminded him of how he felt embarrassed, sending him off into a shame spiral? I should keep my stories to myself or tell them in person so I can monitor the emotional response of those around me with the utmost care.



8. I won’t post anything with videos, images, or text that might offend anyone. I also won’t post anything trivial that might seem superficial. I will walk that razor’s edge between being too intense and too mild and I will succeed in finding a squishy, semi-sweet middle that nearly everyone can agree is only mildly offensive or boring. 


9. Some of my omnivorous friends will be offended by my vegan posts because they will think that I am judging them. Some herbivorous friends will be offended by my vegan posts, depending on whether they are deemed too extreme or not radical enough. Sometimes the omnivores and the vegans can find common ground in rooting out the flaws of my advocacy and so there is something positive about that, I guess.


10. On that note, potentially thorny subjects I will avoid posting anything about to keep the peace include but are not limited to: civilization, history, politics, religion, atheism, family, music, books, television, movies, art, the weather, my favorite color, thrifting, the strange yellow bird I saw, gardening, my new workout, the best way to freeze ice cubes, my salad at lunch, fruit, the funny dream I had, the beach, condiments, the trip I’m planning, refrigeration, my middle name, names in general, my jade plant, and possible hiccup cures.

What’s left, you might ask? I think I can talk about the curtains my husband just hung in my office for a bit, though maybe that is offensive in case someone had a curtain rod fall on his head or someone else was awakened by the sun this morning before she was ready because she can’t afford curtains.

So, okay. I guess I’ve got nothing. 

 



In Our Capacity to Suffer, We Are All the Same...

Recently, I had a tooth abscess. As you can see, my life is as shot through with sexy glamor and sparkling razzle-dazzle as a Bob Fosse dance number. It was a week before my dentist was able to see me but this seemed okay at first because I wasn’t feeling much pain. I patted myself on the back for all that daily kale in my system, that week of raw foods before the abscess happened, believing that I was holding it all together through excellent nutrition. I was prevailing. As the week progressed, though, my condition worsened. My cheek began swelling up on one side like a pufferfish and I stared in the bathroom mirror each morning, fearful of what I might see as I cupped that tender and ever-ballooning side of my face. I kept my clove oil, arnica and oil of oregano nearby as I worked and had to take the strongest over-the-counter painkillers I could find before I went to bed if I had any hope of falling asleep. By the end of the week, I was feeling a throbbing pain in my gum under the tooth each time it pulsed. So, yes, it was a super-fun week. 



Of everything that I fear, from a call from the IRS to the phone ringing at three in the morning, I have to say that the threat of chronic pain or disease trumps them all. Isolated incidents aside, I have thus far been pretty damn blessed with great health, knocking on wood as I write this. I can’t remember the last time I even had the sniffles and whenever I am under the weather, it is mercifully short-lived. My first bout of food poisoning (due to a hot food bar, I believe) was last summer, and it was 24 hours of chills, a fever, and re-evaluating if I wanted to bring a high power into my life just to have someone to bargain with before the yuckiness lifted just as quickly as it had entered my world. This is not to say that I am a wuss, by the way. I am both stubborn and have a high threshold for pain, enduring two days of unmedicated labor with my son.

That being said, I know how much pain and disease can change us and perhaps that’s what frightens me most about it. My mother lived with us for the last three years of her life with very bad arthritis, Alzheimer’s and a neurological disease related to Parkinson’s. When you are as unwell as my mother was, your whole demeanor changes. It’s hard to be positive, it’s hard to think about anything other than your pain. We become very unhappily self-centered. As the French Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard explores in his excellent book Happiness, self-centeredness and suffering are tightly interwoven with one another. When we are not feeling well - emotionally, mentally, physically - we often cannot help but be self-centered because it is so very hard to escape ourselves: even when we are temporarily distracted from it, our discomfort returns us to our suffering again and again like a boomerang. My mother was an extremely generous person who thought of others first to a fault, but as her illnesses and deterioration progressed, she became a virtual prisoner to her bodily pain. As this happened, the selfless mother I knew became almost unavoidably self-centered. I am sure she would have loved to escape from the shackles of her physical self more than anything. The rare moments of levity and enjoyment she enjoyed happened only when her pain was managed somehow.

As my own week of the tooth abscess continued, whenever I would catch a glimpse of myself, I barely recognized the person who was reflected and not just because of my swollen cheek: my forehead was etched with reflexive scowl lines in it. It hurt too much to laugh or even smile much, even if I was so inclined. When the pain dissipated, it was hard to enjoy it because my mind, that feral bugaboo, anticipated and dreaded its return. Whenever my son saw my hand rubbing my cheek, he would say, without prompting, “I’m so sorry you don’t feel well.” Perhaps if I were a better Buddhist, I could ride the waves of pain, be with it, and let it dissolve instead of bracing myself, but I wasn’t able to do that. All I knew was that I was in pain and I wanted it to stop as soon as possible.



During that week, my thoughts also returned again and again to the animals living in captivity. This one tooth abscess chiseled away at the core of my happiness. I have a life that is comfortable and where all my needs are met, where I am loved and have the amazing privilege of being able to make my own decisions, but the constant reminder of pain was enough to undermine everything else I have in my favor, which is considerable. Imagine how the animals - scared, confused, denied their freedom, surrounded by stench, noise, aggression, and suffering - imagine how they must feel? The infected and painful areas where their tails have been docked, their beaks have been cut, they’ve been artificially inseminated, they’ve been castrated, they have mastitis (which I had once and is no joke), they’ve had teeth yanked out without anesthesia or painkillers: the sheer amount of suffering they live with day-in and day-out, most barely able to even stretch a limb, is incomprehensible. Just consider the animals being unable to break free from that pain, both as actual prisoners of a system and virtual prisoners of their own corporeal suffering. These beings who, to the best of our knowledge, mainly live in the present moment. I am staggered once again by the depth, breadth and scale of the cruelties we inflict because we enjoy maintaining our unnecessary habits. We have not only inflicted this suffering upon them but, with it, we have stolen their capacity for feeling joy.

This one little abscessed tooth will be fixed. I’ll get better and my life will go on. I have a life worth living to return to, too, full of small pleasures and great joys. There will be pain again, no doubt, fears, disappointments, and so on but the reality is that there is no other life I’d rather be living. How can we impose pain upon others when we know how shattering it is to suffer? When my mother struggled with the confusion and devastation of her diseases, at least she had a loving family, people who cared for her and tried to minimize her pain, and a safe place to live. The animals have committed no crime and they have nothing to mitigate the suffering we impose upon them.

I am vegan because no one deserves to have their joy stolen from them.














No More Sacrificial Lambs: Passover, Veganism, and the Search for a Spiritual Home

“Not all those who wander are lost.” J.R.R. Tolkien

I was not raised in a religious home; we were “High Holiday” Jews, meaning we’d go to synagogue and celebrate the major holidays with our extended family but that was about as far as our observance went. (Also, there was no pork in the house, but, curiously, bacon was allowed -- don’t ask me, I didn’t do the shopping.) Even as someone who was not religious, Passover had a special place in my heart; it best captured the unique perspective that is just so distinctly and beautifully expressed in Jewish culture. Reading the Haggadah at our Passover Seder with a growling stomach, at least once a year, I felt less alone. At its core, Passover is about enduring hardship and injustice, and powering through to our liberation. It is the bitter and the sweet together that create a life. As someone doesn’t know what she believes but would probably best be described as Agnostic, it is inside the bittersweet kernel of feeling like an outsider that is so essentially Jewish to me. Not sitting in a synagogue but an inner-quality that is ephemeral and very difficult to describe other than being an outsider, embracing that role but also understanding the push-and-pull of it to be both a gift and a source of sadness. To me, that is the essence of being Jewish.


From my earliest memories, I have always felt like I didn’t quite belong anywhere and that the story of Passover described the experience of being castaway well. As the story goes, when the pharaoh refused to release the Jews from servitude, the Hebrew God unleashed ten devastating plagues upon the Egyptians, culminating in the killing of every firstborn son. Jewish households in Egypt marked the door frames of their households so the avenging angel responsible for the killing would “pass over” their threshold and the family would be spared the bloodshed. The homes marked for passing over were designated with the blood of a sacrificial lamb.

In the symbolism of the blood on the door frames, there is an innocent victim we don’t hear from at all, eternally silenced. In the killing of this lamb, sacrificed to human ends without consent, is a core reason why I cannot have a home in a religion that does not practice what I was raised to understand are the deepest values of the faith: compassion, justice, questioning the status quo and speaking out for the exploited despite any pressure to be silent. Today, the sacrificial lamb is largely symbolic, but so are the shank bone and the egg on the Passover Seder plate, yet they remain as both symbolic and real representations of our violence. It speaks plainly of our conceit that we believe that there is nothing immoral about the animals of the earth being born and killed for our purposes.

Being without a spiritual home at Passover each year, I feel something of a kinship with other castaways. The animals we eat, though most are far from roaming loose, are society’s ultimate castaways, facing something far worse than the lack of a spiritual home. Reading the Haggadah, reading of the abuse, persecution and liberation of the Israelites, it’s no wonder that I would grow up to feel very empathetic for the animals kept in servitude. This seems to be an obvious parallel to the Jewish experience but one that our human arrogance doesn’t like us to venture toward. It does make me wonder, though, why so many Jews, who should have an acute sensitivity to the cruelty of tyranny knowing our own history, would maintain this rather large blind spot about our participation in harming others and how it is especially not awakened during a holiday that encourages soul-searching.

It’s bittersweet - again, that word - this fissure between myself and the faith of my ancestors. It’s sad, yes, but if the alternative is accepting the unacceptable, of pretending to be okay with flagrant disparity, I am grateful to have this as an option. I am a wandering Jew and may well remain one for the rest of my life. I am in the company of so many others, though - those who are of faith, those who aren’t sure and those who are not - searching for that place that we can call home. We may never find our home in a society that tells us valuing some over others is perfectly acceptable. We need to be okay with this.

None deserve to be passed over, all deserve compassion, and knowing this may really be enough of a spiritual home for me.

Some Things You Should Know About Vegans

Because I am vegan...


It naturally follows that I really despise humanity. The sound of laughter is like nails scratching against the chalkboard of my soul.

Because I am vegan...



I spend my days carefully planning every item I will be eating or I may die of nutritional deprivation within moments. I carry an emergency supplementation backup kit just in case every meal I eat is not perfectly balanced.

Because I am vegan...


The plants in my garden tremble in fear when they know that I’m nearby. As difficult as it is, I try to not sentimentalize the plants because I know that the carrots, scallions, and kale know their rightful place in the food chain. I do not name them because I know I would get too attached.

Because I am vegan...



I carry buckets of red paint in my car at all times to throw on people in case I come across anyone wearing fur. Or leather. Or eating a hamburger. Or anyone who was at any point in their lives not vegan.

Because I am vegan...



I’ve taken a sworn oath to be an outspoken enemy of anything resembling merriment.

Because I am vegan...


I offer human sacrifices to my Ingrid Newkirk statuette every equinox and solstice.

Because I am vegan...

I wake up every morning with a renewed vigor to stick my nose into everyone’s business because I truly don’t have anything better to do.

Because I am vegan...


As I sleep, an  IV pumps soy isolate into my veins.

Because I am vegan...



I resent your entire existence.

Because I am vegan...

Whenever my angst level dips dangerously low, I can put on my wildly uncomfortable vinyl shoes to bring myself back into the safe zone of spirit-crushing despair.  


Because I am vegan...

Natural light hasn’t entered my home in years due to the dozens and dozens and dozens of feral cats I have blocking all the windows.

Because I am vegan...



I believe that accepted hygiene standards are a tool of the oppressor.



Because I am vegan...



Nothing you do will ever, ever be good enough.



Because I am vegan...



I am looking in your grocery cart and I am not pleased.



Because I am vegan...



I am counting the minutes until I can quit writing this so I can get back to plotting the violent overthrow of government, institutions, culture, community and family. 



Because I am vegan...



I really don’t like you.


Because I am vegan...



Look out your front door. Did you know I was protesting you?  


Because I am vegan...



Every day is a bit like April Fools’ Day. Or at least today is like it.



Because I am vegan...



There still may be one or two items that are a little close to the truth. I’m kidding.

(Or am I?)



Happy April Fools‘ Day!

Ew! There's a Dead Chicken in My Chicken Soup: The Cognitive Dissonance of Disgust

This is an open letter to Nicole Montgomery, a.k.a., the lady who discovered what looked like a chicken embryo in her chicken soup.

Hello, Nicole!

You don’t know me but I saw your video online last week, you know, the one with the alarming chicken part in your Campbell’s Chicken and Stars soup. I have to admit, it was kind of a shocker. By that, I mean that I found it kind of shocking that you were shocked. But then I realized that, yeah, you were not expecting to see that. I can forget sometimes that people have what seems to be irrational standards of what they do and don’t want to see when it comes to what they eat. You told the reporter, "I opened it up, and there was this speck in there -- I was like, 'What is that?' I looked a little bit closer and I was like, 'Oh, that looks like a dead chicken.'”

You did realize that there were dead chicken pieces inside that can of soup when you bought it, right?

I know that seeing that embryonic shape was not exactly what you were expecting but the other various chicken parts in the soup that you were going to feed your daughter were probably not much older than an embryo, most likely barely over six weeks of age when slaughtered. Still, I imagine that you might have been relieved to hear that what you discovered probably wasn’t an embryo. According to an employee from the lab that analyzed the “strange object” in question, you can rest assured that, “The odds are it’s just a veiny portion of the chicken. Those chickens are going to be pretty much de-boned and emptied before they’re ever taken apart to go into a soup product.” 


That can of soup product likely just had a more veiny than usual piece of chicken flesh bobbing around in it. That’s supposed to be a reassuring.

 
I am curious, though: Was it the little body-shape that unsettled you the most? Was it that it drew your attention to something that you’d rather not think about when you eat or feed your child? I mean, the soup you purchased is called Campbell’s Chicken and Stars Soup. There is no fraud about what’s in it. (Oh, except the stars part.) I’m guessing that you were expecting the flesh to be in uniform little off-white chunks and seeing that unexpected veiny piece resembling an embryo was a disturbing moment. I don’t blame you for being disgusted, honestly. The food industry does such an excellent job of keeping us from remembering what we’re eating that when the usual obfuscation around a dead body is removed, it can be a pretty shocking moment. 


I am going to ask you to think about using that disgust and shock and turn your experience into something very different than just a sensationalist news story that is quickly forgotten. I am going to ask you to consider turning that disgust and shock into something that can transform the world. 

We shouldn’t be comfortable with eating anything that we wouldn’t want to eat before being “de-boned” and “emptied.” We shouldn’t be comfortable with eating anything that must be presented in a particular way in order for us to not lose our appetites. Your gut reaction told you that this was something to not feed your child. Every time that veil is lifted, it’s an opportunity. The veiny piece that managed to make it through the machinery to appear in your can of soup was a gift, really. It was a chance to wake up, face reality and refuse to accept what we know is not fit for consumption.



Maybe we feel it’s not fit for consumption because it disgusts us. Maybe we feel it’s not fit for consumption because it unnerves us. Maybe we feel it’s not fit for consumption because it reminds us of something that we’d rather not think about. Whatever is the impetus, I hope you will use that and continue to question the status quo about what you want to support and what you don’t want to support. Birds, fish, pigs, cows: they are are made with blood and bones, organs, skin, cartilage and, yes, veins, just as we are. The only way to forget that is to take apart the body in a specific way. Getting the animal parts into soup cans and stomachs is a necessarily violent process and it’s naïve of us to expect it to be a bloodless journey stripped of all viscera.

So, Nicole, I am asking you, mother to mother, woman to woman, person to person, to do something different. Ask questions. Take this opportunity to think and expand beyond where you were before you opened that can of soup. This matters. This means something. It’s up to you, now, to not deny your gut. No one should silence their discomfort with eating death, whether the veins show or not.


All the best,



Marla

On Alice Walker and History as Destiny

“I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” - Stephen Covey



I grew up with parents who weren’t keen on cooking in an era of processed convenience food, thus I grew up on salami and Kraft singles, frozen dinners and Lipton Chicken Noodle Cup-a-Soup. The one thing my mother made that actually involved washing a mixing bowl was brownies (Duncan Hines, yes, but it still had a couple of steps, so it was pretty much homemade by our standards) and my father would sometimes make a big pan of fried potatoes on the weekend. That was it. I’m not saying this to whine but to give a little background: I did not grow up with a cornucopia of colorful produce that helped to pave the path for my eventual vegan evolution. I grew up on convenience food for the most part, but I also had a grandmother, on the other hand, who made pretty much everything from scratch, so a couple of times a month, I would get homemade matzo ball soup and brisket, rugelach and kugel. She is the one who taught me how to cook. I grew up on the junk foods of the 1970s as well as the homemade Eastern European cuisine that I associate with the person who I loved the most growing up. I have nostalgia attached to both, especially to the latter. 


Naturally, all of us were raised with different food traditions and habits. Whether that was junk food, ethnic dishes from our heritage, the popular food of our time or a mix of everything, we were all raised with some kind of distinctive food culture, but most of that is still familiar to one another. In other words, the food environment we were raised in is unique to us but the differences are not so vast in any given culture. This makes us both distinctive and, well, sort of like everyone else. Unless we grew up in a very unconventional way, we are more or less like everyone else in terms of what we were raised to eat. In other, other words, we may not be the special little snowflakes we imagine ourselves to be.


I was reminded this the other day when my friend Robert Grillo (of the amazing group, Free from Harm) posted part of an interview with famed Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and feminist Alice Walker, expressing disappointment that she, who once wrote very movingly of how humanity’s cold betrayal of the animals compelled her to stop consuming them, has resumed eating animals again. The same Alice Walker who once wrote, “The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites or women for men,” apparently no longer agrees, at least in her actions, with this stated view. In an interview after the publication of her book of essays inspired by her life with her flock of backyard chickens, when the interviewer expressed surprise that she eats birds, Ms. Walker said, “I know, I know. It's a contradiction and I have been a vegan and I've been a vegetarian, but from time to time, I do eat chicken. I grew up on chicken and I accept that.” In direct opposition to her powerfully articulated position years before, it seems that now, the chickens were “made” for her and this is justifiable because that was how she was raised.

She accepts how she grew up as an excuse to continue eating animals. I don’t. 



Like Alice Walker, I grew up eating chickens (and eggs and cheese and cows and turkeys and...) but that is not where the story ends. That was how I was raised, yes, but I have kept evolving. So have millions of other people who do not accept that our history is carved onto us as our destiny. Still, how many times have I heard people say, in an attempt to justify current habits, that they “grew up on the veal parmigiana that my Nonna made” or “I was raised in a family that ate a lot of meat,” or “Polish food is very meat-centric and that was how I grew up,” or whatever it is that they say? A lot. It’s especially saddening, though, when the person who gives voice to this tired rationale is so highly respected for her penetrating depth and powerful mind. If even Alice Walker, someone who once wrote about empathy in such a heartfelt and moving way, abandons her convictions because she “grew up on chicken,” I’m going to hazard a guess that the concept of history as destiny is a pretty ingrained one that many of us hold as true. 


Here’s the thing, though: Unless you grew up on a vegan commune, most likely, you grew up eating a lot of meat and animal products. I honestly don’t think I had a salad until I was in high school, and certain things (including most of the mainstays of my diet today), I didn’t have until college and beyond. I was well into my twenties before I learned that kale was something people actually ate, not just an inedible decoration on a buffet table. Nutritional yeast was the fairy dust that wouldn’t blow into my life until my late twenties. I grew up on all the same familiar stuff that every kid on my block grew up eating in that era. A raspberry Pop-Tart for breakfast. A bologna and cheese sandwich in my lunch box. Spaghetti and meat sauce with that weird frozen garlic bread that I loved for dinner. I also grew up on the ethnic dishes of my grandmother’s cooking. This was my food environment. 



When people say that they grew up eating animals as if this gives them a pass to continue doing so, to me they are implying that those who currently do not eat animals didn’t grow up the same way - but this is untrue. Also, in addition to our food culture, there are other family legacies we may have been raised with in our households. Legacies of abuse. Legacies of addiction. Legacies of all sorts of things we don’t necessarily want to carry over into in our own lives. These legacies may feel comfortable to us because they are familiar but if they harm ourselves or others, how can we justify not trying our best to break the cycle?  



I very much understand the pull to continue eating the dishes that we associate with comfort, nurturing and love. If there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that food is deeply emotional to us. The food from my grandmother represented her in a way: it seemed to be suffused with her unique essence, the one I just wanted around me all the time. What I loved, though, wasn’t the chicken or the matzo balls: what I loved was my grandmother’s spirit and what she meant to me, how I felt when I was around her, what she represented in my life. I loved her, not the food. Still, to be able to call up her spirit whenever I miss her, I can eat the foods she used to make, but I can create them with my values of today. I don’t have to give up anything, and there is nothing like the feeling of accomplishment when I’ve been able to recreate something she used to make - and the feeling it stirs up in me of viscerally remembering her again - without compromising who I am. 



Our history is not a straight line to our future and thank goodness for that. If it were, we’d have handy excuses for all kinds of behaviors that are harmful to ourselves and others. The way we were raised leaves an imprint on us but doesn't obligate us to continue it. My grandmother loved me as I was and I feel that in not compromising while recreating the dishes she made, it is an active way of continuing to love her, to honor her memory and relive our time together. Love is dynamic and creative, it isn’t static and frozen in time like a museum piece. How we were raised is an influence but not the final word on how we are to unfold. When we choose to no longer participate in practices that we no longer agree with, we are not erasing our histories but we are taking an active role in shaping who we are to become. 



You grew up on chicken, Alice Walker. Well, so did I. I’m not going to use that as an excuse to compromise myself, though.