Veganism: My Lot for Life

A lot of people wonder how I've managed to stay vegan all of this time in Europe.

Well, I didn't last long. In fact, on the plane from New York to Israel - the very first part of our trip - I ate some lox. I didn't expect I'd fall astray so quickly, but I reasoned that what you do in the air doesn't really count. Astronauts eat nothing but dehydrated ice cream while they're running around on Mars and Venus, and I can't eat a little lox?

I'm not going to claim that I believe that people who stop eating meat for a while lose the ability to digest it, since that has all the trappings of a myth. All I'm saying is that a few minutes after I ate the two bites of fish, I had a headache and a stomach ache and felt like I was going to die.

So I quit animal products for a while, eating nothing but cheeseless pizza in Geneva and Paris. Then, in Poland, I had my 7 and a half year anniversary as a vegan, and I realized that it was time for a re-evaluation period. Do I really want to be an 80 year old man saying, "wait, wait, wait! Is there butter in this? There isn't? What about ghee? Okay, that's good. Hold on. But are you sure there's not egg whites in this?"

So I ate a cookie with some milk powder in it. And I had part of a soy cutlet that had egg on the outside. I also accidentally ate half of a real chicken nugget. Then the next day I had a bite of sheep cheese. Oh and at some point I had another bite of fish.

All of which were disappointing. I actually had really high hopes for the sheep cheese, since sheep are so cool, but it turns out that sheep cheese is just as bad as any other cheese. The chicken nugget almost made me puke, the egg coating was second worst, the sheep cheese gets a disrespectable third, and the cookie is the least worst because it only had a little bit of milk powder in it.

It turns out that there simply is no tolerable animal product. Except maybe eel, which I haven't had yet.

Even so, the thought of being an 80 year old vegan really depresses me. Hopefully most of the world will be vegan by then anyway, so it won't be such a big deal.

Comments

[miles]

Once you come back to nyc and have the vegan prix fixe dinner at vatan, you'll be less depressed.

[Elisabeth]

Think of your veganism as giving you one more thing to be cranky about when you're 80. You'll love it then! Instead of complaining about your health, you can complain about insidious animal products. Or, perhaps by then, you'll be living in my Utopian dream of Vegantown, where there'll be nothing to complain about at all, ever. (Besides, even more depressing than being an 80-year-old vegan is being the ONLY 80-year-old vegan. As in, no one sticks to their goddamn principles as they grow fat and lazy with age (probably because of the cheese). As in, you go to Pluckers because that's where your meat-eating friends want to go, and the menu thinks it's funny by making fun of vegetarians. Etc.)

[Mom]

My dear, I'm glad you are being flexible enough to evaluate your Veganism. Doesn't sound like you had the best food choices to determine anything. But really think it has to be totally all or nothing?
Grandma Smith is reluctant to touch the computer, but says Hi and that she loves you.

Love,
Mom

[carrie.anne]

I see you're really letting your hair down over there, Rhys.

[cheap jersey]

I suggest your loyal readers do the same. It asks what you think of Jeremy Coon and the choice is obvious