Veganism Isn't About Your Personal Purity
Go ahead, chuck my veggie burger on the same grill as the meat
A couple of weeks ago, my musician husband played a gig at a pub that ended around 10.30pm. Knowing that our fridge only contained a half-empty jar of peanut butter and a quarter of a lemon, we scoured the surrounding area for somewhere to have dinner. With absolutely everything, including supermarkets, being closed, we ended up in a fast-food place, enjoying a classic burger-and-fries combo. I hadn’t been inside a fast-food restaurant in years, and the experience was weirdly nostalgic.
The next day, I shamefully confessed my fast-food dinner to some vegan friends, raving about how great I think it is that we have vegan options at fast-food restaurants, which make life so much easier for vegans. “But be careful,'“ said a friend. “Their fries aren’t vegan.”
What exactly would make fries not vegan, you’d ask? Well, in some places, apparently, they contain dairy and beef flavouring. Which indeed is not vegan. But on this occasion, the issue was that they may have been cooked in same oil that is used for meat and other animal products. And that, for me, is totally okay. Which, according to some vegans, is a controversial opinion to hold.
I thought about when Burger King’s plant-based Rebel Whopper launched, which should have been a moment for vegans everywhere to rejoice: a major food brand was coming out with a vegan option, making vegan food more available to people everywhere (because yes, a lot of people enjoy fast food. For many people, that cheap burger is one of the few luxuries they have. For veganism to reach the broad appeal it needs, it has to be accessible to those people too). Instead, some vegans were outraged that it was cooked on the same grill as the meat. And being outraged was not all: some even went so far as to claim that the burger wasn’t vegan. While these people blamed Burger King for failing to cater to vegans adequately, I…had a Rebel Whopper. It was delicious.
Unfortunately, this was not the first time that sticking to personal purity over actual progress has gotten in the way of a social justice movement. Today's call-out culture often latches onto insignificant details (yes, vegan food being cooked next to the meat is a non-problem). In this finger-pointing climate, it's easy to lose sight of the true goal of our advocacy, which is helping animals. Avoiding food cooked next to meat because of “cross-contamination” does nothing to help animals. In our quest for personal purity, we are really letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
And what does “perfect” mean anyway, when it comes to social justice? Spoiler alert: pretty much nothing. There is no way to be 100% perfectly vegan, or perfectly sustainable, because we live in a non-vegan, unsustainable world. In her book Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times, vegan author Alexis Shotwell argues that there is simply no way to choose a way of eating, shopping or living that is not connected to some form of suffering. She also makes the point that focusing on our individual purity removes focus from the urgent issues that we should be working to solve on a systemic, political, and societal level. “It doesn’t do us any good to aim for individual purity”, Shotwell told The Atlantic. “When we start doing that, we become solipsistic, we become narcissistic, we become very focused on our own personal little thingy and that means that we don’t aim to make systemic, bigger changes. Aiming for that kind of individual absolution—as soon as we mess up, and as soon as someone points out that we’re actually still connected and implicated, we might be tempted to give up at that point.”
Indeed, another reason why this militant approach to purity is damaging is that it might put people off participating in a movement for fear of “getting it wrong”. This is why many people who are indeed vegan won’t call themselves vegan - my own husband was an example of this. Being practically vegan for a long time before he adopted the label, he’s spoken before of how labelling himself was stressful to him, in case he “slipped up”.
Today, David is just like me: a happy, carefree vegan, ordering burgers and fries at restaurants, enjoying the occasional alcoholic drink without any research, and sometimes consuming E-numbers and food containing vitamins with no thought as to their origin. And don’t get us started on some fruit not being vegan. That’s just…bananas (see what I did there?).
“But I don’t want to have a burger that’s been cooked next to meat!” I hear you protest. And I get it - for us vegans, anything to do with dead animals can be very triggering. But here’s the thing: focusing on personal purity over the big picture might actually be detrimental to our goal of saving animals. If we grill (pun intended) restaurant staff on where our meal was cooked, using what equipment, in what oil, and demand perfection in every little detail, businesses may soon decide that offering vegan options is too much of a hassle and take them off the menu altogether, resulting in fewer people having access to vegan food - which in turn will inevitably mean that not as many people will go vegan. And more animals will die. So, by clinging to personal purity, we are actually undoing the very progress that we claim to want.
And what about the people dining with you? Upon seeing you googling whether your beer is vegan, checking that your fries are cooked the correct way and sweating over whether the lemon in your drink is unwaxed, they too are likely to decide that vegan living is too complicated and nix any budding inclination to give it a try. Which, again, isn’t exactly a favour to the animals. As vegans, we are often walking advertisements for veganism - and it’s important to consider the image we project.
The bottom line is, animals don’t care about your personal purity. What’s relevant is whether you order the animal-based option or the vegan one. No additional animals were abused or killed for your fries to be cooked in the same oil as the meat, so it’s not an issue that pertains to veganism. We must keep the focus on what helps animals. If more people go “imperfectly vegan” and partake in the plant-based options currently on offer without sweating the small stuff, this can only be a positive thing for our end goal. So enjoy that burger and fries with a clean conscience.
Photos of me by David Camilli
Photo of burger by me
There is "reduce the suffering of animals" type of vegans and "my body is a temple" vegans. The former is interested in systematic change to help animals. The latter is more self-centered, concerned with moral purity and body purity (no meat juices on the grill!). "My body is a temple" vegans are fine until try to speak out against systemic changes such as Burger King Impossible Whopper or groups like THL and MFA working on welfare campaigns. We should (probably) never be stopping people working for the animals, even if their approach is not something we support.
Yes, to all of this! My husband and I say we are plant-based or vegetarian to avoid contempt. I've heard people say that we shouldn't wear vintage animal products, either. I have no interest in wearing leather or fur, but I have a blazer with 30% wool purchased ten years ago that is in perfect condition. I'm not going to throw it away because someone thinks it will encourage people to buy wool.
However, I do understand that people who are new vegans are very passionate and may feel guilty, so they try to be very strict. It's just not for me.
I also really want all these vegan, ethical brands to go mainstream. I would love to hear a meat-eating friend raving about her pineapple leather bag or apple leather shoes. I wish these strict vegans would realize that, like any movement, community, or business, we need to be kind and welcoming.