This last weekend, the Shane and I took the free bus trip out to the Living Green Expo at the fairgrounds. It turned out to be a lot of fun and there was even vegan food to be had! Here’s me at the hemp milk booth:
It was the first time I’d had hemp milk and it was pretty good. I still favor soy but I think I liked it better than rice milk. When lunch time rolled around, we opted for vegan pizza by the slice (who wouldn’t?) It was from Galactic Pizza and it was awesome.
And, of course, we laughed at the people who were talking about how much they care about the environment while they were standing in this line:
-Kala
It is interesting as vegans to see things “from the other side”. How can people justify being choosy about what they care about and protect? How did I ever do it before? Ya know?….
deep, I know. I won’t let it go to my head
It seems a bit harsh to me to “laugh” at people who say their care about the environment, and assume that they are for some reason insincere because they eat meat. It’s impossible to know what they do for the environment, or what they consume day to day outside of this incident. There are many ways to help the environment, and its true that the vast majority of people, I would estimate a solid 95% of Americans, don’t do it by going vegan. It doesn’t make their attemps laughable. There are probably not very many people who say they are doing everything they absolutely can to protect the environment, for instance taking a bus because its more convenient than a bike ride, but certainly we shouldn’t hold that against people. Its a choice to make, just like what one is going to eat. I suppose what I really just don’t appreciate is the ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ mentality, and an assumption of superiority because of what one chooses to eat. The goal is to encourage people to eat fewer animal products, because I personally don’t believe we will all ever go vegan. But the aim is to educate them about why they should, not make fun of them for it, look down on them for it, and to remember that veganism is one of many important, but not the only contribution to be made for the protection of the environment.