i’m not gonna tell you the (vegan) source of this classist/racist crap.

i just wanted to point out that this is crap. and that this is one reason that many are disenchanted with vegan/vegetarian/organic/natural/etc. food movements.

not because we don’t understand why/how good food is important to us and our families. not because we disagree that a plant based and organic diet is a better diet. not because we just “want” to feed crap to our families and ourselves.

but because of the rank privilege evident when someone says they can’t “grasp why” people might have barriers or difficulties in eating “healthy”.

i would also like to point out that there are different interpretations of “healthy” and what exactly constitutes “good” and “bad” food. and it is, again, a sign of privilege (and complete lack of cultural competency or human decency, for that matter) to insist that only one definition is accurate and the rest of us are “bad” people (read: bad mothers. because again, i NEVER hear anyone say anything about what food fathers feed their kids, bring into the house, or “allow” to be purchased. and honestly, i know a lot of women that would love to cook more wholesome meals but whose men insist on certain kinds of foods/meals being made instead.) if we do not adhere to/agree exactly or have the means to live up to that ideal.

news flash: you can have your own opinion and your own lifestyle. and you can even share the wisdom, reasonings, and benefits of said lifestyle. but you are doing a grave disservice to your movement - and more importantly, to real living people - when you pass judgments and issue statements/proclamations such as above.

(via thingsimreading)

my interactions w/veganism are too complicated to post about here—to sum up, i am *extremely* sympathetic w/veganism as a movement and would like to be vegan, but eventually made the personal choice not to, and that personal choice was based a lot on my on-going health problems—i need the space to figure out these health problems first, and then work through my eating ethics.

and I say that all to preface—i am very very sympathetic with veganism. i tried more than once to be vegan. But one of the things that i noticed was something simple. Veganism promotes itself as the less hazardous thing to be—better for the environment, better for bodies, etc. But—the environmental movement that I am a part of has recognized that the increasing demand for oil based products (as in: canola oil, peanut oil, etc) has had a devastating effect on indigenous peoples, animals and land—all of which are being destroyed to make way for oil plant crops. and the only vegan I have ever seen address the issue that it may actually be a more ethical choice to eat butter products from cows on land that has already been destroyed (or is working “organically” whatever that may mean), is mai’a (who came to conclusions similar to mine) and Vegans of Color—who have addressed the issue but came to different conclusions than I did—although those conclusions aren’t wrong (they pushed to for a consumer pressure on a couple of vegan butter companies, if i remember correctly—it’s been a long itme, please correct me if i’m wrong!!!!)

the long story short—food and shame go hand in hand in our culture. and that food/shame connection is actually responsibile for a huge amount of violence against the integrity of the food chain in the US and even world-wide (think: kai’s frequent posts about racism directed at him through food, think: the complete destruction of a vast group of indigenous people’s food chain by colonizers, think: the way we want to imprison dirty filthy welfare reicpients who are just fucking hungry and who we have historically give the worst food to because that’s what they *deserve*, think: religious conservatives in the US that introduced cereal as a way to get your food but not “overindulge” [kellog and his group of followers])—shaming on the part of ANY group invested in people eating certain ways is simply  following a long historical trend that has contributed to making our food chain the way it is today, and it doesn’t make any sense to me to build on that shame, rather than destroy it.

shame has helped to destroy our food chain and make it what it is today.

shame has helped to destroy our food chain and make it what it is today.

shame has helped to destroy our food chain and make it what it is today.

there has to be another way to approach food choices—a radical way that doesn’t reproduce what we’ve already done. that builds rather than destroys. shame doesn’t build, it destroys. what *does* build? 

(via radicallyhottoff)