(Almost) Eight Examples of How Today’s Vegans Are Spoiled Rotten (and Why that’s a Good Thing)

As I’ve certainly babbled on ad nauseum about on this blog, things are quite different from the perspective of being vegan today than it was in 1995 when I first went vegan. It is better in pretty much better in every way in so many categories of life. For example:

Finding vegan food…
Today’s vegans have these things called apps that practically lead them by the hand to vegan food.

Back in the day, we had to find our food the hard way: if there was even a whiff of a rumor of vegan food being somewhere, we sent out our most skilled and selfless foot soldiers to traverse many miles in search of it. Often, these odysseys were in vain and many of our soldiers did not return from these perilous treks alive. Their brave spirits live on.

Having vegan food delivered…
Today’s vegans can have food delivered to their doors. Imagine that!

Back in the day, when we wanted vegan food delivered, we’d have to order it from restaurants that were at least three states away and wait for at least two weeks for it to arrive through a complicated underground network of vegan couriers and the delivery charge would be at least $1,000.00, plus you’d have to put the whole delivery team up for the night. When the food finally arrived, it would be old and often moldy but we would scrape off the mold and be grateful for it.

Ordering at non-vegan restaurants…
Today’s vegans can go into omni restaurants and often find something to eat.

Back in the day, when we wanted food at a non-vegan restaurant, we’d be seated in the alley by the garbage cans and dumpsters – even if we were with groups, we’d be separated from them – and the surliest kitchen staff would swing at us with rock-hard French baguette loaves and take turns pelting us with rotten produce, mocking us and laughing at us. Anything we could gather from this ordeal would be our meal.

Traveling as a vegan…
Today’s vegan can practically travel the globe with not much worry about finding appropriate food.

Back in the day, if we left our home bases, we would have to be stocked with enough munitions in the form of military-style ready-to-eat meals or dense nutrition bars to get us to our destination and back without starving to death. We expected nothing. If we were lucky enough to happen upon vegan provisions on our journey, we would take note of the exact longitude and latitude coordinates and light our most powerful fireworks to express our gratitude and broadcast its existence to any surrounding vegan community.

Grocery stores…

Today’s vegan can go to any average grocery store and find a wide variety of vegan cheeses and ice creams, not to mention burgers, sausages and patties.

Back in the day, our only choices were hothouse tomatoes, onions, iceberg lettuce and withered cucumbers. Even canned peas and corn had lard in it. We were forbidden under strict community legal standards to even say the word “vegan” in order to even ask for anything else.

Vegan Culture…
Today’s vegan has a myriad of magazines, films, books, luminaries, websites and more that expand, deepen and build vegan culture.

Back in the day, if we were really skilled eavesdroppers, we may have heard the v-word in conversation or seen it in a comic strip (maybe even a syndicated one) and on the rare occasion that this happened, we would literally collapse to the ground in shock and irrepressible, erupting emotional tides. Once we could stand again, we would painstakingly dial up the few other vegans we knew on the cumbersome telephones we had, awkwardly clutch the handsets between our ears and shoulders and share the exciting news.  

Vegan community…
Today’s vegan can find diverse opportunities for community around the globe and online.

Back in the day, vegan community was that one guy who looked like the Unibomber (and may have resembled him in avocation, too), that hippie who was into crystals and reading auras who referred to herself “semi-vegan” depending on the phase of the moon and perhaps those dudes who leafleted for the Hare Krishnas. You weren’t sure if they were actually vegan but you’d have to agree to go to one of their Sunday talks at the Krishna Temple to find out and so you never did find out.

Activism
Today’s vegan can protest rodeos, circuses, canned hunts, slaughterhouses and so on and warmly welcomed by police officers who help us to exercise our right to peaceful assembly and free speech as well as passersby who are not only willing to hear the compassionate message but eager embrace it.

Hahahahahahaha! Just kidding.

Back in the day, we were mistreated by the police as well as threatened by puffed up dudes on an apparent ‘roid rage, spit on, verbally attacked, physically assaulted and we still are today.

So, yeah, other than that last one, I’d say we’re made some progress.