I haven’t talked about veganism for a while, and though I have already thoroughly baited Puck with my post on Wikipedia, I woke up sassy today so why not?  Let’s talk about plants, yes?

I am finally settling into comfortable veganism.  Up until recently it’s felt a lot like work.  The worst part is when we eat out, and the best we can do is a salad (no-cheese-no-egg-dressing-on-the-side-please).  I have a tendency to feel ripped off, like I’m missing out on things.  Which in one sense I absolutely am: I’m missing out on pizza and ice cream and enormous wedges of lasagna.  Sometimes I even feel sulky about it, when I am in the grip of hunger and the thought of a bowl of lettuce is just so inadequate.

But then there’s the other side of things.  I lose out on certain things in the short term, but gain others in the long term.  Healthy arteries, a safe weight, reduced risk of a variety of cancers, reduced environmental demand for my food, reduced cruelty.  (Though I never seem to stop finding animal products in surprising places, like toothpaste.)  Mainly we eat at home now, because when we eat here, I can make big, filling, nutritious meals.  There is no sense of being ripped off.  And it’s cheaper.

I try to keep things in perspective.  Society’s permissive attitude toward food (eat anything you want, anywhere, at any time) is a ridiculous standard against which to measure my veganism.  It’s not that veganism is wildly restrictive and unreasonable,  just that the rest of us have made it normal to be wildly gluttonous.  Have you noticed that?  People whip out food at any time they are required to hold still for more than five minutes.  Business meetings, lectures, riding the bus, shopping.  Everywhere you look people are stuffing their faces, and it’s with on the go style food, meaning junk.  I don’t remember this being the case when I was younger.  As a kid, food came at regular and predictable times: breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner.  We ate at the table.  If we were out and got hungry, we held on until we made it home.  I remember this as normal for everyone I knew.

It’s like we’re afraid to be hungry (we here means society).  We can’t smoke now, so we need something else to put in the hole.  “Hole” here being literal (mouth) and metaphoric (existential emtpiness).  Food is comfort.  A good breast, if I may use a little Kleinian psychoanalysis.

Maybe I’ve been suffering from the lack of breast, which is just my reality, but since going vegan I’m no longer in a position to hide it by stuffing myself with restaurant and 7-11 purchased munchies when I go about my day.  Perhaps I’ve been in a process of dealing with the lack of instant gratification/breast, so that now I’m pretty cool with my salad, knowing there’s something better at home.

Perhaps this doesn’t make any sense.