The Vegan Thread

Popped into Whale Tail Cafe in Lancaster on Sunday. Food was pretty good, nice beet'n'buckwheat burger, salads looked huge too. Mix of veggie and vegan stuff. Cake was a little underwhelming, should have gone for the crumble and vegan custard they had as a special but it seemed a bit sunny for that...

Nice sheltered seating outside, veggie co-op underneath is closed at weekends unfortunately.

Anyone been to vegan cross up near kings X?

Yes, I'm not around there often, but it's a good shop. They usually have something that's only just started to be imported.

I make a point of going there whenever i'm in London, it's a decent place.

I went there about a month ago and wasn't that impressed. They were busy and didn't seem too happy about it... the food I had was ok (missed out on the last burger) but not brilliant... 2/10 for effort, gut would go again but earlier in the day

Yeah, it's generally got a good range of stuff you don't see elsewhere, though last time I was there, I bought an éclair from the patisserie section which turned out to be completely frozen. This was in the middle of a long run, so less than ideal to eat when trying to run on a cold day.

thoroughly mixed reviews then....deffo going to try it. they may have got it running a bit smoother by now.

i have to say, its the kebab and burger that intrigue me the most.

VX is way overpriced (due to location, but still all the staff are volunteers...). The food is nothing special and the service is below average. The kebab is tiny, same as the burger. Shame that there are no other vegan shops in that area.

OH sent me this pic from Moon Food in Brussels. Vegan buffet goodness. I have no idea what most of it is but the variety is quite something

Anyone here following Vegan Strategist? Just found his page last week. He seems a bit controversial in the vegan community, however I really resonate with his message.

Being vegan is obviously great and the way to go, however for me it sometimes feels like a struggle for perfection. I have set very high standards for myself (and rightly so) and strive to be as consistent as possible. For example, I am still using the leather wallet that I bought before I went vegan and it bothers me a little bit every time I pull it up.

Tobias (vegan strategist) reminds me how important it is to take a step back and gain some perspective, to remind myself of why I am vegan. Which is to stop animal suffering, not to be 100% consistent all the time or some sort of saint. I find this a very refreshing view because it shifts the focus from "me, myself and I" to the animals and how I can best make choices to reduce their suffering. To look at veganism from a bigger picture if you will.

He brings out a very interesting scenario in one of his videos. Suppose a non-vegan friend of you invited you over to dinner and he went out of his way to make a vegan lasagna. It turns out, however, that the lasagna sheets have eggs in them. What would you do at this point? Would you say "sorry, I can't eat this, I'm vegan" or would you make a compromise and eat the lasagna? What choice would best help the animals in the long run?

Thoughts?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuQIZy2cnks

For me - If your conscious about their being animals in the food then I wouldn't eat it. It doesn't bother me being polite or adhering to that. There's always other options - we live in a world of convenience - chances are you can knock something up in 5 mins with whats in the house - or pop down to the local shopper and grab something. I dont see the logic of 'relaxing' moral / ethical beliefs for sake of being courteous / polite.

Veganism is not really about perfection. Its a progression. No-one can live in the first world and be 100% full natty. For me anyway - I have bought envelopes that have been made using cheap glue - contains gelatin. Interesting point of discussion though.

Thanks for the video - i'll check it out now.

That looks incredible

If you ever find yourself in west South Downs visit these guys http://www.sustainability-centre.org/.
Plenty of vegan cakes, burgers, and ice cream.

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I agree with your point regarding being polite and turning down food that you know has animal products in it. However, the point I was trying to make was not so much wether you would compromise ethical beliefs in a given situation, but rather about making decisions that will benefit the vegan movement in the long run. Of course this is very subjective, which is why I brought it up.

The way I look at this specific scenario is that this non-vegan person (a friend) has put in a great effort to accommodate and please me but slipped up with the lasagna sheets containing eggs. Since he invited me to dinner in the first place knowing that I am vegan, I would assume that he is at some level intrigued or starting to open up to the idea of veganism. By saying "sorry, I can't eat this" I think that this is reaffirming the general belief that its difficult to be vegan and thus distancing him going vegan himself, which in turn is not progressing the movement.

This is the same reason that I am not picky about vegan beer/wine when at the pub with friends. Its about picking your battles. In the long run I think it benefits veganism more to show that this is not a difficult lifestyle and opening people up to the idea of it. Then we can worry about the isinglass, gelatine, E numbers and all that other small stuff later.

That other small stuff is death and suffering of animals. How is consuming animal products benefitting vegan movement in long run is beyond me.

In London for a few days next week, staying just next to Hyde Park on Bayswater. Any good vegan places near by?

The end goal of veganism is of course to end suffering for all animals. This will only happen if we have everyone on board, and there is currently only a small percentage of our society that is vegan. How do we get the rest on board? By being strategic in our approach when spreading the message and "recruiting" more people. The world is not black and white, and I don't think our approach to veganism should be either. Most people eat animal flesh at every meal. We are not going to win these people over by talking about gelatine or isinglass.

Do 2 semi-vegans make 1 vegan?

How does that look from a meat eaters perspective? You say your a vegan - but your actions (by eating egg, gelatine, e numbers) say differently.. Are people not just going to call you out for being hypocritical? How is that progressive / good for the 'vegan movement' short or long term? Surely its better to show people you stand up for what you believe in and show some conviction. Instead of being a part time vegan when it suits you.

Educate. Ok so your friend slips up. No worries.. I'll show you how quick and easy it is to make a 10 minute chilli with corn chips, salsa and a beer. Flip it on its head. It looks like the perfect opportunity to me - to demonstrate the ease of this way of life instead of eating a mistake.

How long have you been vegan? Also have you checked out barnivore.com?

To answer your question about hypocrisy, I’ll quote Vegan Strategist. His response is worded much better than I ever could.

***When I make e.g. my lasagne argument, saying that in order to make the idea of veganism more accessible I would make tiny exceptions here and there in special cases, some vegans think this will be interpreted as inconsistency (worst case: hypocrisy). Let me tell you: the concern for inconsistency is mainly in our own heads, not in the meat-eaters’. What other people see is something that is really really difficult. Showing that in, whatever special cases, exceptions can be made, would make us and veganism seem more attractive rather than less. Consistency is, in my humble opinion, often overrated. That doesn’t mean we should just do whatever. But 99% consistency will be perfectly fine.***

Standing up for what you believe in is of course very important, and this is not to say that I don’t do that. However, I think that in some few situations it can be more effective to build a bridge rather than to stand tall.

I have not been vegan for that long. Yes I know of barnivore. I always buy vegan alcohol for myself. What I was talking about earlier was situations where someone in the group buys everyone a round. Sorry if I made that unclear.

Did you check out the video? Thoughts of the rest of his talk?

Anyone here following Vegan Strategist? Just found his page last week. He seems a bit controversial in the vegan community, however I really resonate with his message.

I think I've looked at what he writes before but I haven't been too interested.

Being vegan is obviously great and the way to go, however for me it sometimes feels like a struggle for perfection. I have set very high standards for myself (and rightly so) and strive to be as consistent as possible. For example, I am still using the leather wallet that I bought before I went vegan and it bothers me a little bit every time I pull it up.

That's not something I would worry about too much--replace it when you feel like it. The 100% vegan restaurant and bar Karamel in Wood Green has lots of leather sofas left over from the previous use of the space, when they weren't involved yet. What happened there is in the past. I still have an old leather saddle somewhere (that I've been trying to find for years) and I don't lose any sleep over that.

Tobias (vegan strategist) reminds me how important it is to take a step back and gain some perspective, to remind myself of why I am vegan. Which is to stop animal suffering, not to be 100% consistent all the time or some sort of saint. I find this a very refreshing view because it shifts the focus from "me, myself and I" to the animals and how I can best make choices to reduce their suffering. To look at veganism from a bigger picture if you will.

He brings out a very interesting scenario in one of his videos. Suppose a non-vegan friend of you invited you over to dinner and he went out of his way to make a vegan lasagna. It turns out, however, that the lasagna sheets have eggs in them. What would you do at this point? Would you say "sorry, I can't eat this, I'm vegan" or would you make a compromise and eat the lasagna? What choice would best help the animals in the long run?

What he's advocating there is merely a consequentialist perspective--look up 'consequentialism' or 'utilitarianism'. The idea there is that if you're nice to your friend he might be more likely to go vegan, which would have as a consequence or utility that the sum total of the benefit to animals that he might cause during the rest of his life would be a lot more than the suffering of the animals who were abused in producing the eggs that went into the lasagna sheets. Many consequentialists actually invent scales on which such things are supposedly measurable, so that you can compare the two and conclude that there are much greater benefits from your friend going vegan. This is all casuistic bollocks, of course, based on nonsensical stipulations.

(Many people think that consequentialism/utilitarianism is an ethical theory; I don't, but it's a long discussion. Some people naturally tend towards finding consequentialism/utilitarianism intuitively compelling and others don't, and there are reasons for that which aren't usually understood very well in the debate, so that discussions about this tend to be interminable. :) )

Of course you should watch the consequences of what you're doing, but that doesn't mean that consequences are the substance of ethics. Anyway, it's old hat. Also, it's precisely because you don't always have to act in accordance with bringing about the most positive consequences or utility that what Samuel Scheffler calls the 'agent-centred prerogative' can apply to you here. That is, you don't always have to act in the way consequentialists argue you should. You can stick to your principles--the key is to be diplomatic about it.

So, no, I certainly wouldn't eat the lasagna, but I would, of course, thank him for his well-meaning efforts and make sure I don't piss him off (if I did with that he might not be ready to go towards veganism yet, anyway).

You tend to be caught out by contamination enough without it occurring in dinners cooked by friends to worry about it too much, e.g. accidentally missing an animal ingredient in a packet of crisps you buy or something like that. There are plenty of opportunities not to be perfect. Just decide in each case what you want to do.

Interesting input Oliver, thanks for sharing. I'll be sure to read up about consequentialism. Adopting this approach is of course not measurable, and I don't think that there is a good reason to try to do so either. However, I do believe that an approach like this can be effective in certain situations with certain people. We are all different and people react differently to how new ideas are presented to them. Some resonate with an in your face approach (i.e. Gary Yourofsky style) whereas others needs to be "eased in". For me personally, I feel that this approach is a more pragmatic one that allows me to be a better advocate for the vegan lifestyle.

Whatever works for you in the end.
Interesting point of discussion.

progress does take a very long time. And I don't think people should be to worried about trying to convert lots of people all at once. Folks will find it if they have a logical and compassionate standing. Which most of us are born with :)

Yum

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I agree, its important to take a step back and don't take on "too much responsibility as a vegan. However, it's not always easy to stand amongst all this suffering and seeing your loved ones paying for it to happen. Where they see a meat aisle, I see a cemetery :(

Edit: on a more positive note, that looks delicious!

one of our portsmouth uni coffee stops! haven't been in a while but from what I remember it was great!