Ask the vegan: What Do You Call…?

These are some of the questions that I get asked, so I will answer in one block

What do you call…

a vegetarian who eats cheese?
a vegetarian

someone who eats bacon and chicken wings? a chickenwing-atarian?
no, an omnivore

what do you call a vegan who eats fish?
what do you call a vegetarian that eats fish?
an omnivore, some people who eat fish but no other animals might give themselves a fancy label such as aquatarian or pescotarian, but they are not vegan, they are not even vegetarian

what do you call a vegan who eats eggs?
a vegetarian, if they eat no other animal products, they might consider themselves an ovo-vegetarian

what do you call someone who is vegan but eats cheese?
you don’t call them a vegan, they are a vegetarian

what do you call a vegetarian who eats cheese?
a vegetarian

can vegans eat chicken?
they can, but they wouldn’t be vegan, they would be an omnivore

what do you call a vegetarian that eats chicken?
an omnivore

does alicia silverstone ever cheat on her vegan diet?
you can’t cheat on a vegan diet, you are either a vegan or you are not, once you start eating a little cheese now and then, you are no longer vegan… and yes, she does, or has done previously: what do you call a cheese-eating vegan?… a celebrity (the Alicia Silverstone saga)

what do you call a person that doesn’t eat animals but eats cheese?
if they are vegetarian, and eat no other animal products, such as honey or eggs, might consider themselves lacto-vegetarian

what do you call a person that does not eat?
a breathatarian, starving, hunger-striker, famine… depends on the context, this is not related to veganism

what do you call a vegan that eats chicken and fish?
anything but vegan, not even vegetarian, they are omnivore

For more on this choosing the label that you want to wear, see: Vegans, Vegetarians and Lacto-Ovo-Meli-Pesco-Pollo-Porcine-Ovis-Bovine-atarians

or the definition with explanation of vegan

if you would like to know the code for installing the vegan background, ask me, leave a comment, tweet me, or if you would like a custom background, let me know

If you start a debate with “I fight for animal rights, but I’m no vegan” don’t expect applause

If you fight for animal rights, you fight for the rights of all animals, there are no exceptions for those you think taste good.

Apparently my previous post upset a lot of people. (Justifying Meat Eating – ridiculous things meat-eaters say), even more so than my anti-vegetarian posts or where I point out that eating cheese isn’t actually vegan.

But the comments and insults are the same….

– Cut the vegan-cheese eaters some slack. Cut the meat eaters some slack. You are too militant and give vegans a bad name.

I even had one person say that I am too critical of meat eaters and that makes me a bad vegan. She justified her OPINION saying:

“I fight for animal rights, but I’m no vegan…”

Say what?

No really, say what? You fight for animal RIGHTS by EATING THEM??? or wearing them??

Did I miss something? How is it that you think consuming any animal product contributes to their rights?

I do not understand how someone who says they believe in animal rights can consume a product that is produced from slavery and torture and murder.

Perhaps they don’t truly believe at all.

Seriously, I do not understand – perhaps someone can explain it to me.

 

 

Eggs, consumed by animal loving vegetarians…
Does this look like “animal rights”?

 

 

How about dairy production?
What part of this Mercy for Animals video represents the rights of these cows?

Yeah, I can see how some animal rights activists might confuse this for liberation… um, no, I don’t.

Like a vegetarian who sees nothing exploitative with consuming, dairy or eggs or honey (some thoughtful reasons why this is a confusing rationale for a vegetarian to make, here: Why Veganism is a Feminist Issue). There seems to be a disconnect when people say they fight for animal rights, but continue to personally consume their corpses or products from their bodies.

If someone willingly and knowingly consumes any commercial animal product and does not see they horror behind it, they either cannot know where their food (and other consumables) comes from or they know and simply do not care.

As this previous post discusses, Cheese: The Other White Meat (why cheese eaters are problematic for vegans), the problem with cheese / dairy is that there is so much death involved. Similar stories are found in egg production and honey production.

And these are the people I’m not being NICE enough too?

You have got to be kidding me!

If you want someone being NICE about the reason people consume corpses, perhaps a blog called “vegan animal liberation” is not the place to go looking for it.

and, Why is it that VEGANS are always having to modify what they do, so they don’t “offend” those who eat the corpses of slaughtered animals. Ooh careful, don’t want to upset the very people whose selfishness is the direct cause of this exploitation, cruelty, slavery and murder.

Oh, and is it even possible to be too MILITANT when it comes to fighting for justice and liberation for animals, all animals.

Why must I, as a vegan, compromise. (As I am so often told I must)

From a vegan viewpoint, people who say they fight for animal rights, but aren’t yet vegan, make the fight a whole lot harder.

Outsiders who look at these people see them eating animal products or wearing animal products, may think that it is acceptable.

This is a common complaint that vegans, and in particular abolitionist vegans make against groups like PETA. When PETA campaigns for larger cages for the chickens used by companies like McDonalds or KFC, the message that non-vegans get is that animal rights activists think that there is an acceptable size of the cages. A concept that Gary Francione has called “New Welfarism”.

New welfarists … believe that welfarist reforms such as making cages bigger will eventually lead to empty cages

These welfarist campaigners are a worse than people who do nothing, that just make it a lot harder for real animal rights changes. (Imagine it from the other side – the meat producers say “what? you want no cages? no meat? no eggs? only last week, you said that if we increased our cages by an inch, you would consider that a victory”… such as the ludicrous demands from PETA to Sonic that “The company just agreed to begin purchasing eggs and to double the amount of meat it purchases from suppliers that use less cruel production methods.”)

I’m not laughing.

Although, I do appreciate what they do, I appreciate that they can contribute to fight, and I accept that meat eaters can do a lot, I don’t understand how they can say what they are fighting for is animal rights, but rather “animal welfare”.

So, all that remains is for me to ask these people – if you know all that know, why are you not vegan?

Personally, I don’t believe it is possible to fight for animal RIGHTS and not be vegan.

This is not about being militant, it is about the suffering and cruelty and exploitation of the animals.

Feedback welcome

Some people may take offense to this, thinking that I am saying what they do is not good enough. I am just trying to add another side to the debate, and like this post The Dreaded Vegan Discussion… Critical Thoughts Encouraged… shows – the vegan community is large and diverse and all voices are (should be) encouraged.

Cheese: The Other White Meat (why cheese eaters are problematic for vegans)

If you are a vegetarian, and would like to be vegan, my question for you is… what are you waiting for?

Vegetarians know the reality of where there food comes from – or rather WHO their food use to be, and it does not seem to bother them.

A lot of vegans, probably have at some point meet someone who says that they are “almost vegan” or “90% vegan – except for cheese”, or,

They may say something like – “oh I could Never be vegan, I love cheese too much” or maybe they do actually call themselves Vegan, yet has an occasional slip up, if they are at a party, and someone offers them some cheese, then they might “cheat” on their vegan diet

I met a “vegan” recently, who lectured me about how I was a “fake vegan” because I didn’t hate on ALF – animal liberation front – yet, this same person didn’t know that their morning protein shake made with whey wasn’t actually vegan.

Oh how I laughed!

Dairy is not benign, dairy involves huge amounts of cruelty and exploitation and DEATH.

And then these cheese-eaters pat themselves on the back, thinking that Vegan is just a different form of Vegetarian. I mean, we all love animals, right? It’s not like the animal has to DIE or anything, right?

Oh, but I never buy cheese myself! they protest. If someone offers it to me, or there is a pizza, or I’m hungry, or [insert excuse here]. That would be like someone saying “oh but I don’t smoke, I never buy cigarettes myself, I mean, if someone offers me one, or I get them off a friend when I’m at the pub after a late night, but, no, I’m not a smoker or anything”.

How is this any different? Just because you don’t buy it, does that mean it stops being cheese?

Here is my opinion… You know those old sayings “Milk – is liquid Meat” or “There is veal floating invisibly in every bottle of milk” or “Meat is murder, milk is rape” … vegans (by that I mean actual vegans, not faux cheeseatarian vegans) chose to not consume dairy in all its forms, because…

nothing could taste so good that it justifies rape and torture and slavery and murder.

That is what it comes down to:

If you consume dairy this is what you support

This PeTA video, shows the reality of the Land O’ Lakes dairy factory in Pennsylvania USA.

This is not an exception.



And don’t kid yourself – if you consume dairy products, and you haven’t personally met the cow, there is a very good chance that what you are eating came from cows just like this portrayed in the video.

And just why is that cow generously giving us her milk? Well she isn’t. Milk is meant for baby cows… it is baby food, for HER babies.

Like any mammal, she produces milk only to feed her babies.

Which means, she is forced to become pregnant against her will in order to create the baby that will get her body producing the milk.

And if people are stealing her milk (the cow doesn’t GIVE away anything), then there are babies out there, that are not drinking it.

So, what happens to those baby cows, which are surplus to requirements – if they survive the high infant mortality rate, they get sold into slavery, and become either milk cows or veal calves or pet food.

Pet food? Seriously, imagine telling that to a baby – your life is nothing, you are worth more to me dead.

or, Some may be shipped off to cosmetics companies to be turned into face creams or diet pills, because in some markets, it is illegal to use cows that are older than 30-months old in order to reduce the risk of spreading Mad Cow Disease (BSE – bovine spongiform encephalopathy).

Beauty products that are stuffed full with animal products are not beautiful. Nope, I do not want to be slapping dead calf on my face.

And this is a side effect of societies cheese-addiction.

Not much of a life, is it?

Then, what happens when the dairy cow gets too old?

After years of slavery, of being treated like a machine….

Cows that have been bred for maximum milk production, are unable to sustain the weight of their udders, which may be infected with mastitis, then what?

Is there a pension plan, and she goes off to a farm in the country to wander the hills and pastures and frolic in the clover… hell no, if she survives a couple of years of relentless torture in the dairy factory, she is shipped off to slaughter as soon as the milk production begins to slow up.

Thanks for the all milk, my dear, and don’t let the barn door hit you on the way out.

And then there is RENNET
Unless the label states “non animal rennet” – that cheese the vegan is eating, it isn’t even vegetarian.

Rennet is an enzyme used in cheese making, that is naturally present in the stomach of calves in order to digest the milk they are drinking.

Animal Rennet is taken from the lining of calves stomachs, and is often a by-product of the veal industry.

So when Vegetarians justify their continued animal consumption because “the animal doesn’t have to die”, What exactly do they mean? The baby cows that don’t survive to adulthood, the veal calves, the petfood calves or the cosmetics calves, the sick and dying milk cows, the retired cows who are sent to slaughter at 4 or 5 years old instead of well into their 20s which is the natural life expectancy of a cow.

Yummy.

This isn’t even going to go near the substances actually in the milk – pus, blood, leukemia cells, bovine growth hormone, anti-biotics, pesticides, herbicides, possibility of BSE prions, excessive amounts of protein and lots and lots of saturated fat.

Cheese eaters – what is the difference between that and eating meat for all the misery the production of milk entails.

And don’t get me started on vegans who eat HONEY……

Further reading
IVU: What’s wrong with dairy products?
Describing Some of the things wrong with dairy.

Vegina >> dairy is a feminist issue.
A look at dairy from a feminist perspective

NEGOTIATION IS OVER – Conklin’s Sadism
Yet another example of what is standard business practice for dairy, at an Ohio dairy factory.

“Jack LaLanne Said We Don’t Need Meat And Dairy” (vegetarianstar.com)

Del and RedGlitter
Feedback welcome

EDITTED TO ADD: There had been a MFA (Mercy for Animals) video in this piece, somehow it has been removed, and the link has been removed, without my knowledge. Even the text surrounding the video.

Is wordpress censoring vegan blogs now?

what do you call a cheese-eating vegan?… a celebrity (the Alicia Silverstone saga)

I get a lot of flak when I point out that many of the people the vegan community holds up as heroes aren’t actually vegan.

I am told that they do more for veganism that I ever will (yeah, maybe, but at least I don’t eat animals!)

I am told that nobody is perfect, and then my critics trawl through my life trying to find somewhere that I’m not perfect either (yeah, maybe, but at least I still don’t eat animals).

Cover via Amazon

Here is Ms Not So Perfect Vegan Alicia Silverstone advocating CHEESE – again.

Alicia Silverstone Confesses: I Cheat on Vegan Diet!

Even a proud vegan like Alicia Silverestone gives in to temptation once in a while.

The actress and author of The Kind Diet confessed that sometimes she slips up — and dairy is her downfall.

“If I was at a party and there was a tray of cheese sitting there and I had had drinks, then I might have a bite,” Silverstone confessed to UsMagazine.com at an EcoTools event in NYC on Wednesday.

Silverstone doesn’t let her momentary lapse get to her, though. “It’s human,” she said. “It’s a really good reminder that sometimes you need to have what you remember is this good thing. Because then you have it, and you’re like, ‘Actually that wasn’t better than the recipes in my book,'” Silverstone told Us.

“Being flexible that way makes more people comfortable,” she said. “If I’m rigid about it and I’m perfect, then no one is going to be able to be like me because I’ll be this icey, rigid thing.”

Silverstone credits the vegan diet with better health. “I haven’t been to a doctor in 13 years,” she told Us. “I don’t have to worry about calories, I don’t have to worry about how I look because I know that what I do makes me look my best.”

For a start, I’m not sure there is such a concept as “cheating on a vegan diet” that would make it… um – not vegan!!

Like a virgin who cheats on virginity, gets pregnant and says, but I’m still a virgin, I only cheated a little!

Once we start having the concept of cheese-eating vegans, its a slippery slope til the word “vegan” means anything that people want it to mean.

There already is a perfectly valid word for someone who avoids meat but eats cheese….. VEGETARIAN!

Ever tried to define vegetarian?
A coworker told me once there are two types of vegetarian, those who eat meat and those who don’t, no matter how much I tried to tell her that a vegetarian who eats meat is not a vegetarian in any sense of the word, she would not be swayed…
there is the fish-eating-vegetarians, the fur-wearing-vegetarians, the chicken-and-bacon-eating-vegetarians, the vegetarian-3-days-a-week-and-steak-on-the-rest… the word “vegetarian” has become pretty much useless.

I was out to lunch with friends recently, one who is a vegetarian told the wait staff “I’m a vegetarian, no meat in the stir fry vegetables” it came loaded with prawns. She sent it back.

One of the reasons that the word / concept “vegan” was invented in World War 2 was that vegetarians on got rations for cheese and eggs as replacements for meat, and so began a campaign to be recognised as not consuming animals products. There are many other reasons too, but this was one of the earliest fights for recognition, that a vegan was something separate to vegetarian.

No one stands up when people assume that meat=cow/lamb but not meat=fish/chicken/pig.

The amount of vegetarians who eat fish or chicken or pork/ham/bacon is so strange. And people just accept that it is a sub-set of vegetarian.

So, when people praise Alicia Silverstone for her veganism, do we accept it, and think, but she does so much for her diet book, oops I mean veganism – or do we go, “yes, she might do a lot for animals but she really isn’t vegan herself”.

If it is okay for celebrities to cheat – how big of a celebrity does one have to be? Movies? Magazine covers? Is there like, a slide scale of celebrity A-list and B-list can eat cheese, maybe C-list – but once we hit the D-list celebrities they can’t get away with calling themselves “vegan who eats cheese”? When was vegan redefined as – something you do only when you are a commoner?

And as for Alicia’s comment that she eats cheese when she has a drink… Really, when was vegan redefined as – something you do only when sober?

Then there are instances of people who identify as “vegan” (such as this brainless moronic post: Alicia Silverstone cheats on vegan diet with dairy as her downfall which says sometimes a little egg and dairy are good, because it shows others we are flexible, and that the author herself “I end up having bit of dairy or a baked good with some egg in it” – hun, you ain’t vegan!!) complaining about those who forgo all cheese as being “militant”, I beg your pardon – not eating cheese is not being “militant”, it’s actually just plain Vegan.

I respect what Alicia has done for animals, and if people go vegan because they read her book, good for her, but people also go vegan when they visit PETA websites too, and many, many vegans don’t like PETA, and compare that to the hatred directed at Sea Shepherd for not being vegan, and people change because of SS too, so why the double standards? I really hope it isn’t because she is young, blond, white and famous.

How many vegans out there don’t eat cheese, or any other dairy, and find ways to get alternatives.

In this post Alicia Silverstone goes Vegetarian, Alicia describes her eating of BK Veggie Burger, its “yummie”, that Burger King burger also contains egg and milk.
That original twitter comment is found here http://twitter.com/AliciaSilv.

Why do people go through all sorts of contortions to redefine vegan. It is simple – not animal products. Not just sometimes, all the times. If you accidently eat something, then you move on, but for Alicia, it doesn’t seem to be an accident, it seems to be a pattern.

Take a look at her answer here:

What do you do when you crave non-vegan foods?

Alicia Silverstone.: Well, I never crave non-vegan foods, because vegan foods are so delicious. When I’m out and there are no vegetarian foods available, then I just make the best choices I can. Sometimes, it’s to eat nothing at all, or I’ll have the least offensive thing. Maybe there’s a salad with goat cheese, or potato salad with a little mayo. That’s what it’s about — making the best choices under all circumstances.
Alicia Silverstone Quit Counting Calories – With Her “Kind Diet”

Actually… NO, veganism isn’t defined as “making the best choices” – it is In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.: Vegan

But, at what point do we stop watering down what “vegan” actually means, people call Bill Clinton vegan in the exact same interview he discusses eating fish (He actually seems to be making a lot of changes to his dies, it is “almost vegan”) – vegan has a meaning, do some people want that label so badly that they will ignore its meaning? I could call myself anything I want, doesn’t make it true, calling yourself “vegan” when you clearly aren’t doesn’t make veganism flexible, it totally strips all value and meaning from a word that has a specific definition.

… how would ordinary (by that I mean, Non celebrity) vegans who don’t “cheat” (which I find a silly word, its not “cheating” its eating cheese) feel going to a vegan restaurant being served cheese, honey, eggs, once that happens, the people who actually are vegan might have to explore a new word.

Meanwhile comments such as:
Brent Phillips (on facebook): Someone call the vegan police! Revoke her vegan powers

People who make comments like that, are they vegan themselves? I know how hard it is for me and vegans I know to live a vegan life, someone who doesn’t encounter difficulties occasionally, maybe there is a reason.

And as for “revoke her vegan powers”…. um, do you consider cheese and egg to be vegan? If you think there is something wrong with pointing out that Alicia Silverstone is a vegetarian, not a vegan, then there is definitely something wrong with your definition of vegan.

Image by Pulicciano via Flickr

Portia de Rossi’s Aha! Moment

I had no appetite for meat sauce. Giving up beef wasn’t just some fleeting idea. Over the next year, I stopped eating all animals and animal products. I always thought going vegan would be difficult, but I genuinely don’t crave meat or cheese. And I feel happier, like I’m contributing to making the world a less violent place. Before that morning on the farm, I ranked an animal’s value based on how “human” it was. Now I don’t judge other beings that way—every animal has its own intelligence and sensitivities. They’re all lovely, worthwhile, and deserving of our respect.

Comparing the words used by both Alicia and Portia, and how they see veganism:
Alicia uses words like: “recipes”, “calories”, “look my best” and the words “Losing Weight” are in the title of her diet book
………. compare that to Portia de Rossi : “intelligence”, “sensitivities”, “respect”, “deserving”, “worthwhile”, “contributing to… the world”

And yet, Alicia is seen as a true champion of kindness and veganism, and Portia is just a bimbo lesbian.
Portia de Rossi, probably doesn’t get enough respect for her awareness.

For more on this topic – whether it is a good thing for vegans to expand the definition to include cheese and eggs like Alicia Silverstone does
What Lines Do You Cross on an ETHICAL Vegan Diet?

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Articles copyright 2010 ‘Vegan Animal Liberation Alliance’. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Written by RedGlitter of VALA https://redglitterx.wordpress.com/

Feedback welcome.

The Myth Of Humane Meat

The Myth of Humane Meat
A video I created, not just uploaded to YT.

Former vegans and vegetarians use the concept of humane meat and welfare standards to continue to consume animals. The word animal by-product to describe milk and eggs is shown to also contribute to cruelty and exploitation. Features extreme graphic images of how animals become food. People who eat meat are entitled to know who their food used to be.

Taking one food as an example – the classic burger, this clip shows that for animals, it is not humane.

Music: Knocking On Heaven’s Door – Cold Chisel
Vodpod videos no longer available.

VALA’s The Myth Of Humane Meat
Follow my videos on vodpod

Ice-cream is non-patriarchal

“Icecream is nonpatriarchal. Ice cream, frozen yogurt, milk-shakes– every dairy product we can think of is the exclusive product of females. So, okay, they’re cows… But eating this stuff can be a political act that neatly unities feminist principles with a love of animals… Fuck the vegans, I say. Anyone who doesn’t eat ice cream for purely “ethical” reasons is a killjoy and a moron and ultimately not to be trusted. Pro-ice cream is pro-woman”
Kiss My Tiara: How to Rule the World as a SmartMouth Goddess – Sarah Jane Gilman, p25

Dairy is very much a feminist issue

MILK=VEAL

From the treatment of the female animals enslaved to produce it, to the women consumers of this product, and the way it is sold to mothers by playing on their guilt to overdose their children on dairy.

Which, I think has to be seriously, one of the most moronic statements I have ever seen in print regarding dairy and feminism. The SINGLE most effective thing that got me to go from vegetarian to vegan was the two sayings “There is veal invisibly floating in every glass of milk” and “Meat is Murder, Milk is Rape”, and if anyone looks at where milk comes from, and the conditions of the cows, there is no way they could claim it to be a feminist act. And if this author saw the condition of dairy cows, there is no way she could claim to love animals.

Quite apart from the fact, that unless the person gets their milk from a farmer who they know, and who happens to be female, milk isn’t the “product of females” it is the product of large corporations, with a board of directors most likely made up almost exclusively of men, whose first priority is to make money. It is not your health and it is not the welfare of the cows or the consumers. No. They will do whatever it takes to make as much money as possible.

Cows, like all mammals (including people), produce milk to feed their babies, so in order for the cow to produce milk, she has to have a baby. In order to get the cow pregnant, she is continuously raped (sex without consent). And, because the milk corporations do not want to share that milk with a calf, the babies are removed from their mothers, the females to become dairy cows and the males to become veal.

And regardless whether that dairy is organic, or factory farm, the male babies are surplus to requirements, and sent to packing plants (“slaughterhouse”). Because no farmer (few if any), no matter how much they claim to love their animals would spend the money to raise and animal that is unable to make profit.

So, what part of being raped, and having your baby stolen and slaughters sounds feminist?

How does rape and slaughter of babies promote the sisterhood?

The body leeches calcium out of bones to the blood stream in order to neutralise excessive protein. Where does protein come from – animal products. So milk is sold to women as a cure for a disease that has a devastating effect on women more than men, especially post menopausal women – that being osteoporosis. Yet, too many animal products can be a large contributor to the osteoporosis. But do large corporations care about womens’ health? It doesn’t seem that way, not as long as they are selling a product to women whose only nutritional information comes from dairy and meat industry propaganda.

It’s not about whether people and animals are the same, but are their Rights the same. Any living thing is as entitled to the most basic right of all, the right to live a life, especially without suffering.

Dairy is the very essence of imposing of patriarchal values – if you want it, take it.

So, GOT MILK? Got rape, veal, cruelty, suffering, apathy, patriarchy, damaged health, animal cruelty, toxic environment, disease and death?

— SIDEBAR: The following ad for quality cattle crushes came up while I reading for this pieces
Cattle Crush Company Fail search engine

Feedback welcome.