{"id":190,"date":"2008-07-31T09:03:28","date_gmt":"2008-07-31T17:03:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.happycow.net\/blog\/?p=190"},"modified":"2008-07-31T09:06:30","modified_gmt":"2008-07-31T17:06:30","slug":"vegan-activism-a-three-pronged-approach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.happycow.net\/blog\/vegan-activism-a-three-pronged-approach\/","title":{"rendered":"Vegan Activism–A Three-Pronged Approach"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

When I was a child, I learned that creating a fire was an equilateral triangle\u2014you need fuel, air, and heat to cause fire.\u00a0 <\/span>Take away any of these, and the fire dies or simply won\u2019t start.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A similar approach can be taken to vegan activism\u2014three prongs to use when trying to convince people to reduce or (preferably) eliminate their consumption of animal products.\u00a0 <\/span>First, we remind people of the animal cruelty inherent in all animal foods, especially eggs and dairy products.\u00a0 <\/span>Second, we remind them of the environmental devastation\u00a0caused by\u00a0animal industry. And third, we show them just how delicious vegan food can be.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s no denying animal industry is cruel.\u00a0 <\/span>Recent reports of appalling conditions and horrific abuse going on in slaughterhouses has been reported in the mainstream media.\u00a0 <\/span>Even the conditions in which animals are raised have gotten some press.\u00a0 <\/span>Many people don\u2019t like to think of the animals on their plate suffering unnecessarily, which is why they\u00a0<\/span>go for less cruelly produced (often referred to as \u201chumane\u201d) meats and cage-free eggs.\u00a0 <\/span>Part of the vegan activist\u2019s job is to politely inform them that there really is no such thing as \u201chumane\u201d meat and most free-range labeling is nothing short of greenwashing.\u00a0 <\/span>The only truly humane solution is to leave the animal products off one\u2019s plate. <\/span><\/p>\n

There is also the environmental aspect.\u00a0 <\/span>This is just starting to get noticed among activists fighting global warming.\u00a0 <\/span>Granted, going vegan is not the only thing one can do to help the Earth, but it\u2019s certainly the biggest.\u00a0 <\/span>The UN reported that animal industry contributes more greenhouse gases than all the transportation in the world, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported that runoff from factory farms causes more pollution than all other industrial sources combined.\u00a0 <\/span>Yes, it\u2019s great to look for alternative and renewable\u00a0forms of energy; yes, it\u2019s great to use compact fluorescent bulbs (in spite of the mercury); yes it\u2019s great to bring your own bags to the grocery store; yes, it\u2019s great that you reduce, reuse, recycle; and yes, it\u2019s wonderful to try to buy local foods.\u00a0 <\/span>But nothing will do more to help our planet than cutting meat from your diet.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, none of your activism will do any good if people think their diet is going to be dull, and this is where the third aspect comes in:\u00a0 <\/span>Showing people that vegan food is AWESOME.\u00a0 <\/span>Feeding people delicious food shows them that being vegan doesn\u2019t mean eating just lettuce and tofu.\u00a0 <\/span>In Carol J. Adams\u2019 Living Among Meat Eaters<\/em>, one person relates how she slowly convinced a die-hard meat eater with whom she worked to go vegan, first by the delicious-looking food she brought, the extra she brought for him because he had been asking to try her food, and then pamphlets she gave him when he finally was ready for the message about animal cruelty.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>When my mom visited me in December for a very short weekend, she confessed to having gobbled a hot dog in the airport, knowing she wasn\u2019t going to get any meat while she was up here in Washington, DC (it was barely 36 hours, Mom!).\u00a0 <\/span>I took her to Java Green for their weekly vegan brunch on Saturday, which she enjoyed.\u00a0 <\/span>Later that evening was a fund-raising event for Compassion Over Killing, a locally based vegan advocacy group.\u00a0 <\/span>There was plenty of vegan food on hand from many local restaurants.\u00a0 <\/span>My mom was so impressed by the food she decided to go vegan one day a week.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s not much, but it\u2019s three fewer meals at which she eats animal foods.\u00a0 <\/span>And she sometimes visits a local vegetarian restaurant even on her meat-eating days.<\/span><\/p>\n

You may notice that health is not listed.\u00a0 <\/span>While stats show that vegetarians and vegans have lower rates of heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, and other so-called diseases of affluence, it doesn\u2019t mean one won\u2019t develop one of them.\u00a0 <\/span>And many people\u2014both veg*an and omnivore\u2014don\u2019t always eat right.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s a \u201ccan be\u201d not a \u201cdefinitely will be,\u201d and I know I\u2019m not the healthiest person in the world, so I don\u2019t mention it unless someone asks.<\/span><\/p>\n

But by mentioning the animals (gently), the environment, and the delicious foods one can have as a vegan, you can form a strong basis for convincing people to leave animal foods out of one\u2019s diet, even if it is only on a part-time basis.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was a child, I learned that creating a fire was an equilateral triangle\u2014you need fuel, air, and heat to cause fire.\u00a0 Take away any of these, and the fire dies or simply won\u2019t start.\u00a0 A similar approach can be taken to vegan activism\u2014three prongs to use when trying to convince people to reduce or (preferably) eliminate their consumption of animal products.\u00a0 First, we remind people of the animal cruelty inherent in all animal foods, especially eggs and dairy products.\u00a0 Second, we remind them of the environmental devastation\u00a0caused by\u00a0animal industry. And third, we show them just how delicious vegan food can be. There\u2019s no denying animal industry is cruel.\u00a0 Recent reports of appalling conditions and horrific abuse going on in slaughterhouses has been reported in the mainstream media.\u00a0 Even the conditions in which animals are raised have gotten some press.\u00a0 Many people don\u2019t like to think of the animals on their plate suffering unnecessarily, which is why they\u00a0go for less cruelly produced (often referred to as \u201chumane\u201d) meats and cage-free eggs.\u00a0 Part of the vegan activist\u2019s job is to politely inform them that there really is no such thing as \u201chumane\u201d meat and most free-range labeling is nothing short […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8873,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[125,2330,2337,126,16],"class_list":["post-190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vegan","tag-activism","tag-animal-rights","tag-environment","tag-food","tag-veganism"],"yoast_head":"\nVegan Activism-A Three-Pronged Approach - HappyCow<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.happycow.net\/blog\/vegan-activism-a-three-pronged-approach\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Vegan Activism-A Three-Pronged Approach - HappyCow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When I was a child, I learned that creating a fire was an equilateral triangle\u2014you need fuel, air, and heat to cause fire.\u00a0 Take away any of these, and the fire dies or simply won\u2019t start.\u00a0 A similar approach can be taken to vegan activism\u2014three prongs to use when trying to convince people to reduce or (preferably) eliminate their consumption of animal products.\u00a0 First, we remind people of the animal cruelty inherent in all animal foods, especially eggs and dairy products.\u00a0 Second, we remind them of the environmental devastation\u00a0caused by\u00a0animal industry. 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