The humours of veganism explored by two friends of the meat industry

From dailybaro.orangemedianetwork.com

By Roy Keller and Fox Perez

There are few things better than bacon. Sure, world peace and a life without fear have a good ring to them. But thick-cut maple smoked bacon with a peppered and lacy bark on its flank; you can’t beat that.

But loving bacon isn’t just about taste. It’s about comfort, certainty, the familiar sizzle of a world that makes sense. So when you decide to give that up — not for health, not for morals, but for something else entirely — you learn fast what you’re really made of.

In pursuit of something greater, people will forfeit pieces of themselves in order to reach their goal. 

For instance, a while back, we went vegan. 

No torrent of emotion nor grand epiphany led us to make the decision to forfeit the comforts of dairy, eggs and oh so delicious meat. 

No, something much stronger led us to the righteous path of veganism. A bet. 

While the complete contents of the bet are best left unstated, what should be known is that it was our responsibility, as a team of two, to remain vegan for an entire work week. 

For the uninitiated, veganism is vegetarianism’s older, meaner brother. On top of barring the practitioner from meat, they must also omit any and all animal products from their diet, including eggs, dairy, honey and even in some cases, cane sugar. 

Veganism to people like us, proud meat eaters and regulars of the dairy aisle, is a stark contrast to how we choose to live. Without proper stakes, the world in which we live without chicken, pork and beef is distant at best. 

Yet somehow, the stakes presented themselves. With the promise of a dinner akin to a full hog suckling on the nectar of Eden, paid for in full by The Daily Barometer’s Sports Chief Nikolas Muñoz, veganism was a herculean challenge we couldn’t back down from.

Beyond chicken tenders sit in a warmer at the Cascadia Market in the International Living-Learning Center at Oregon State University on April 28. The market offers a variety of vegan food options on the go. Kenzie Whaley

Despite Oregon State University’s sprawling and readily available vegan menu found on their website, we, as newcomers to the vegan space, decided to take to the creed as our forefathers had. Without any research whatsoever. 

For myself, Fox Perez, this lack of due diligence toward doing the homework led me down a path not unlike historical exemplars such as the Buddha or Jesus of Nazareth. That being the ancient and mysterious art of fasting.

Meanwhile, Roy Keller, he took to his own forefathers’ traditions of pillaging and raiding. But have no fear, citizens of Corvallis, Oregon! You all can rest easy knowing that his rampant skullduggery was strictly contained to the wandering of Ninth Street’s Trader Joe’s.

Between some nutritional deficit-induced mania and moving through TJ’s like there was blood in the water, we caught glimpses of the world beyond. One in which we bathe in bacon, sing amongst steak and delight in dancing drumsticks.

For Keller, this delusion of the beyond sent him into thoughts of the electric chair. Meanwhile, for Perez, this mere psychosis led him to the mountaintops of the central steppes of Asia, in which he no longer yearned for food of any kind, merely taking satisfaction and pleasure in the scents that pranced around his nostrils and tickled the neurons in his brain.

Crunchy peanut butter is great, but it can only get you so far. 

Weeks later, from the comfort of a leather armchair with a belly full of very non-vegan dinner, we can say with confidence that being vegan here at OSU can be really easy or it can be pretty dam hard. The gossamer-thin line between the two lies only in your own resourcefulness. 

Luckily for us, our own scrappy nature, alongside invaluable vegan coworkers — KBVR-FM’s Taija Riley and Evangeline Jorjorian — helped us navigate the largely joyless sprawling wasteland that is veganism. 

If you, dear reader, are considering entering the vegan space yourself here at OSU, here’s a word to the wise: if when you walk into your local Subway they ask “the usual?” If your butcher knows you by name, if you have to groan every time you sit down and stand up, consider vegetarianism first.

If, for whatever reason, you can’t help yourself and you long for a life without the modern wonders of cheese or butter, we highly advise you to take a look at the University Housing & Dining Services website.

But here’s the rub: having options on a webpage isn’t the same as having options on your plate. During our week of veganism, we found that OSU’s dining halls offer just enough plant-based fare to keep you alive, but rarely enough to keep you happy. Think cold, sad refrigerators tucked toward the back of Every Bean’s a Good Bean or Bites with a near-empty supply of instant curry and what could be chalked up to mystery meat tortas.

So while veganism is technically available at OSU, we wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who doesn’t have a bet riding on it. The dining halls lean hard into meat-and-dairy comfort food, and the vegan alternatives often feel like an afterthought: under-seasoned, under-stocked and under-loved. 

Unless you enjoy interrogating every dining hall employee about hidden butter or walking out with a bowl of plain rice and steamed broccoli, you’re better off sticking with vegetarianism — or just accept the fact that cheese and cold cuts make the rigor of collegiate life far away from your hometown family and friends just a bit more bearable.

https://dailybaro.orangemedianetwork.com/31748/opinion/daily-barometer-forum-column/the-humors-of-veganism-explored-by-two-friends-of-the-meat-industry/ 

Is veganism a privilege?

From dazeddigital.com

Billie Eilish’s take on meat eaters not being animal lovers has divided the internet and sparked a conversation on meat, classism and racism – young vegans and non-vegans alike weigh in

“Eating meat is inherently wrong”. That’s the hill Billie Eilish recently said she’d die on last month in an interview with ELLE. She went on: “Two things can not coincide: ‘I love all animals so much’ and ‘I eat meat’. You just can’t do both.” Those two sentences were enough to send the internet into a frenzy of vegan discourse. There are those who believe that it is a privileged perspective – a tale of white veganism – and that many people can’t be vegan because of financial or health-related reasons. Some have called veganism anti-indigenous or racist, considering that there are people across cultures who rely on and respect the animals they kill. In reaction to those upset by her views, Eilish recently shared videos on her story of animals suffering in the food industry. “Stay fucking mad at me… I really don’t give a goddamn fuck.” 

Veganism has always been a divisive topic – I know this because I am vegan. But, before non-vegans stop reading, I’m going to preface this by saying that I think Eilish’s hot take lacks nuance. We live in a culture that tells us what animals we should care about (usually because they are cute and easy to domesticate), without any guardrails in place to protect all sentient life. But whether or not people are “animal lovers” or not aside, I’m more interested in whether it’s possible to openly critique the factory farming industry today, without just blaming everyone who eats meat individually. It feels like an especially important conversation in the US right now: Just this year, for example, the Trump administration has backed proposals by the USDA to increase the speed of assembly lines in the pork and poultry industries (from slaughtering 140 birds per minute to 175). 

Factory farming is an environmental issue, and the proposed changes to federal rules happening in America right now would double down on an already polluting food system, increasing the amount of waste discharged into local ecosystems. But it’s also a matter of workers’ rights: slaughterhouses rely heavily on rural workers who are disproportionately immigrants, refugees and people of colour who often suffer physical injuries and illnesses because of the conditions. For this reason, throughout the recent iteration of online discourse around veganism, people have also been sharing their thoughts on how factory farming intersects with environmental racism, workers’ rights and even women’s rights. “Y’all’s hatred of vegans and vegetarians is rooted in sexism,” said one creator, Paris Mwendwa, on TikTok. 

In a time where it’s hotly contested to speak out against factory farming – as a shift towards conservatism in American culture encourages people to eat more meat – we asked young people (plant-based and meat eaters alike) for their take on the current state of veganism. 

KAREN, 27, US, NOT VEGAN

“Billie’s comment came from a place of privilege. It was like when Kim Kardashian said people needed to stop being lazy and work. The controversy of it all is that it centres whiteness, as if it were the default. Many BIPOC communities live in food deserts where vegan options may not be available. If they are available, they’re priced higher than meat products. For example, I live in Chicago. The city is so big, and there are a million grocery stores, yet vegan products are still not accessible to all people because of how expensive they are. Shopping at a Trader Joe’s is a luxury to me.”

ANNALEESAH GARCIA-PIÑA, 25, TEXAS, US, VEGAN

“Before I went vegan, I felt uncomfortable when veganism was brought up. I get it. Food is more a part of who we are than we care to admit, so it feels like being attacked, but it’s bigger than just me or you. It is interesting how veganism has always been seen as a white or privileged lifestyle, though it was originally built by low-income communities. I find it weird when people who aren’t indigenous speak on behalf of us and think we can’t be educated enough to be vegan or make our own lifestyle choices. I know plenty of Indigenous vegans who were happy Billie started this conversation.”

YAPARONI, 24, SOUTH KOREA, NOT VEGAN

“I don’t agree with the notion that eating meat is inherently wrong, but I don’t think you can say you love all animals while you consume meat and animal products. It’s fascinating because I feel like years prior, millennials’ rebuttal against veganism was much more direct. Most people acknowledged the unethical practices of the meat industry, but they simply liked eating meat, so they wanted to keep doing it. But it seems my generation is trying to find a moral justification for eating meat to refute the ideology of veganism, when there are plenty of cultures around the world that have various vegan and vegetarian options.”

ANGEL KUTENGULE, 22, BRIGHTON, UK, VEGAN

“As a Black woman who originates from one of the poorest countries in the world, Malawi, the idea that veganism is racist and anti-indigenous is honestly laughable to me. Animal agriculture is the leading driver of climate change, which will disproportionately affect the global south and Indigenous communities more. Because meat is so expensive, it’s frankly offensive to assert that that lifestyle, or those similar to it, come from privilege. The transition to veganism for me came partially as a financial decision.”

ADISA, US, NOT VEGAN

“Veganism is unpopular, and its practitioners even more so. Most vegans are of this white, middle, or upper-middle-class family background, and convey their message poorly to the average person. The position that simply consuming animal products is immoral is untenable. POC have less money and mental bandwidth due to socioeconomic struggles to rework their entire diet and shift to a vegan diet they’ll actually stick to. Even on the cultural point, are POC supposed to forego their entire cultural dishes to eat like livestock? The issue isn’t eating meat, it’s the immoral practices caused by capitalism and the primary motivator being capital, not the well-being of animals.”

LILY HIʻILANI OKIMURA, 28, HONOLULU, HAWAI’I, VEGAN

“People are still heavily misguided on veganism and think it’s just a diet, or that it was invented by white people who go to Whole Foods and do pilates on the weekends. They don’t understand it’s a movement that seeks to exclude all forms of animal exploitation and cruelty, as far as is possible and practicable. The thing that keeps getting missed is that this was never a debate about Indigenous hunting practices. This is an argument that non-Indigenous people especially love to make to avoid accountability for their participation in industrial animal agriculture. If you have the means to, you should absolutely be reducing your meat and dairy intake.”

https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/70244/1/young-people-feel-veganism-privilege-billie-eilish-meat-animals

Is Honey Really Vegan? A Beekeeper Shares What to Know

From realsimple.com

Bee experts share their thoughts on the popular food 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Honey sits in a grey area for vegans because it’s made through the labour of bees, so whether it fits a vegan diet depends on personal beliefs about animal involvement.
• Ethical and small-scale beekeeping can minimize harm and even support ecosystems, but concerns about animal welfare still lead many vegans to avoid honey altogether.
• For those who skip honey, there are plenty of plant-based alternatives—like maple syrup, agave, or date syrup—that offer similar sweetness without using bee products.

Honey is one of the oldest foods we have recorded history for—in fact, humans have been enjoying the sweetener—or using it as a natural remedy—for at least 8,000 years. But with the rise of plant-based eating and vegan diets in recent years, the question of whether or not honey is vegan has emerged for those who avoid animal-based products.

We spoke with two bee experts to learn more about how honey is made and used by bees to ultimately answer this question.

                                                                                                 Credit:  aire images / Getty Images

How Honey is Made

It’s first important to note exactly how honey is made when considering this topic.

“Bees fly up to a three mile radius around their hive to gather resources: nectar, pollen, and propolis. To make honey, bees suck the nectar out of the flower. That nectar is put into a separate honey stomach within the bee (called the crop) and then they fly back to the hive,” explains Danielle Brooks, head beekeeper and owner of The Honey Truck Company in St. Augustine, Florida.

Back at the hive, bees take further steps to produce honey. “Upon returning to the hive, the honey bees spread the nectar on the walls of the wax cells, and fan their wings to evaporate off the water,” says Nissa Coit, a former honey bee researcher and educator. As this moisture evaporates, the sugars in the nectar thicken and develop into honey—where the bees then seal it with a thin layer of beeswax.

Honey provides energy and essential nutrients for the bees to survive and thrive, especially in winter when flower nectar isn’t available. The nectar from a staggering two million flowers is required to make just one pound of the popular sweetener. However, healthy bee colonies typically produce more honey than they need, sometimes two to three times more. “The honey bees make, that we harvest, is considered the surplus, meaning they don't need it,” Brooks explains.

Is Honey Vegan?

With this information in mind, does honey technically qualify as vegan?

“While honey bees do not produce honey from their bodies, the way that a cow produces milk, they do labor to produce it, and their bodies modify it,” says Coit. “Essentially, eating honey is stealing a bit of their labor, rather than a product produced by their actual bodies.” Brooks echoes this, adding, “it's not technically a product of the animal.”

That said, some vegans avoid any food whose production is closely tied with animals, which would include honey. One could argue that taking honey from beehives for human consumption negatively impacts bee communities, too. For example, Coit shares that a few squished bees are a standard part of beekeepers’ interactions with the hive throughout the season. 

“Sure, not all bees are kept in the best conditions, but if you are a small-scale beekeeping operation, it is easy to maintain a great environment for the bees,” adds Brooks. Ethical beekeepers always ensure their bees have more than enough honey to sustain them until the next harvest period.

Plus, beekeeping (and in turn, honey production) can actually offer important benefits to the environment. “If you practice beekeeping in a holistic and ecological way (as opposed to industrial management), especially if you live somewhere that bees are native to, keeping bees can provide an overall benefit to the population and greater ecosystem,” says Coit. In fact, bees are essential for food production—around 30 percent of the global human food supply is pollinated by bees!

Coit also provides additional food for thought, sharing, “if you replace locally, holistically-produced honey that killed a few individual bees with, say, coconut sugar that was flown on a fossil fuel-burning jet from across the world that originated from a plantation that deforested a rainforest, how many more animals were harmed by that habitat loss?” These factors are important to consider when determining whether gray-area foods—like honey—can be broadly labelled “vegan” or not.

Ultimately it’s a person-by-person decision. “As someone who works with bees, and has talked with people over the years, it comes down to the person making the choice,” says Brooks. For vegans comfortable eating honey who want to ensure animal welfare, seek out ethical, possibly local beekeepers and ask about (or research) their production practices

And while we’re on the topic of whether bee products are vegan-friendly (or not), propolis, royal jelly, and beeswax are also worth discussing. “Propolis is tree sap or resin that the bees collect to use inside the hive as glue or a way to secure things. It's not something that is made directly from bees. It's more of a resource they gather and use within the hive, making it a grey area for vegans (like honey),” Brooks shares.

On the other hand, royal jelly and beeswax are more obvious no-go’s for vegans. “Royal jelly comes from a developing gland in nurse bees and they feed it to larvae for only a few days during the larval stage. If they are trying to develop a queen, she is fed it the entire larval stage,” says Brooks. Meanwhile, beeswax also comes directly from the bee. “To make wax requires a lot of honey. It takes about six pounds of honey to produce one pound of wax,” Brooks adds.

Vegan Honey Alternatives

Regardless of where you stand on whether or not honey is vegan, there are alternative sweeteners to choose from if you’d like to avoid this bee product—that aren’t refined white cane added sugar.

These include agave nectar, maple syrup, molasses, date syrup, coconut nectar or sugar, golden syrup, rice syrup, and barley malt syrup. Alternatively, a slew of vegan honey brands are available, including Blenditup’s Organic Vegan Honey made from apples; these offer a more honey-like flavour compared to the other substitutes listed here.

While the question of whether honey is vegan isn’t straightforward, there are reasonable arguments on both sides that individuals must ultimately weigh for themselves. Those who choose to consume honey can support bee and ecosystem health by seeking out small-scale beekeepers who prioritize ethical practices.

https://www.realsimple.com/is-honey-really-vegan-a-beekeeper-explains-11968639

Pret Launches Vegan Korean BBQ Tofu Meal For Spring

From plantbasednews.org

The new Korean BBQ tofu "Super Plate" combines crunchy tofu with rice, quinoa, and vegetables 

                                                Pret is a UK cafe and sandwich chain with several vegan options 

                                                                                            Media Credit: Adobe Stock

Pret A Manger has added a vegan Korean BBQ tofu option to the menu.

The new plant-based meal is part of a broader menu update at the cafe chain involving increased emphasis on protein-rich ingredients and dishes.

Pret’s Korean BBQ tofu “Super Plate”  includes “crunchy” miso and chili seasoned tofu, Korean-inspired BBQ sauce, kimchi, slaw, black rice, and quinoa, topped with sliced radish, edamame, tenderstem broccoli, and cucumber wedges.

The Korean BBQ plate joins vegan-friendly Pret options such as the avocado, olive, and tomato baguette, falafel and chipotle flatbread, hummus and chipotle wrap, falafel and slaw roll, and a squash and hummus mezze bowl, which is also new.

The cafe chain also serves a vegan-friendly dark chocolate cookie, a fruit-filled “very berry” croissant, chopped fruit dishes, and a range of dairy-free drinks.

In addition to the new food options, Pret has said that it will now serve large-size versions of its barista-made beverages and announced several seasonal flavours.

The new Korean BBQ tofu Super Plate contains 21g of protein, and Pret has also added several other new protein-rich menu items, most of which feature animal ingredients like chicken, fish, and eggs. Pret says that it makes its vegan food “to a vegan recipe,” but that it is “not suitable for those with milk or egg allergies.”

                                    The new Korean BBQ tofu Super Plate at Pret A Manger contains 21g of protein
                                                                 Pret A Manger

The new Korean BBQ plate is not the first tofu option from Pret. In 2019, Veggie Pret introduced its “Vegan Classics” range, which included a tofu-based “Eggless Mayo” and cress baguette, as well as a VLT, tuna mayo-style baguette, and a hoisin wrap.

The company closed its last three Veggie Pret stores in 2024. Katherine Bagshawe, UK food and coffee director at Pret A Manger, said that the closure was not in response to falling demand. One in three main meals sold at Pret is still vegan or vegetarian, and Bagshawe said at the time that “every Pret is a Veggie Pret shop.”

https://plantbasednews.org/lifestyle/food/pret-vegan-korean-bbq-tofu-meal/

Food refill van promises 'zero effort' shopping

From bbc.co.uk

Most people want to reduce the amount of single-use plastic packaging they use, but some struggle to prioritise this while shopping, according to the co-founder of a Cambridgeshire zero waste company.

Alice Lightowlers, 33, said she and her partner set up VanJarred Refillery, a mobile shop selling food and toiletries without packaging, last year after "a lot of the more sustainable, zero waste shops in Cambridge closed down".

Their focus was on convenience, because "people tend to put their plastic waste to the back of their mind," Ms Lightowlers said.

                           Alice Lightowlers helped set up a food company she said aimed to be "zero waste, zero effort"                                                                                                                Tom Jackson/BBC

The van tours markets and business parks in and around Cambridge and delivers directly to people's homes.

Shoppers place their items into their own containers or use either donated containers kept at the van or compostable paper bags.

Most of the fare is bought in from Suma and Infinity, two British-owned wholefoods wholesalers which specialise in vegan, vegetarian and organic foods.

Other products are made by local suppliers, including Cambridge Honeybees, Hot Numbers Coffee and Peichin's Table, which produces Asian-inspired sauces and condiments.

Essentials such as pasta, olive oil and toilet roll sit next to vegan pick-n-mix sweets, natural deodorant and dog shampoo bars in the van.

                                                              The van mainly stocks vegan and vegetarian wholefoods                                                                                                                                                             Tom Jackson/BBC

Whether VanJarred's prices can compete with supermarkets "really depends on what you get", Ms Lightowlers said, with herbs, spices, fruit and nuts on the cheaper end and local produce often on the more expensive end.

"If you shop organic it's probably cheaper to go to a refill shop because there is a bit of a premium on it in the supermarkets," she said.

The prices for all their products are listed on the company's website, , external

with organic porridge oats at 35 pence per 100g and organic lentils at 60 pence per 100g, for example. 

Ms Lightowlers met her partner Cedric while working at a biotech start-up in Cambridge.

Their second-hand electric van now stops at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, Wellcome Campus, Babraham Campus, Clay Farm and Burwash Larder every week.

It began trading in September last year, before beginning its "zero waste, zero effort" doorstep delivery service in March.

Customers choose their products online then leave out containers for VanJarred to fill on its routes, which begin in Cambridge and span out as far as Cottenham, Fulbourn, Harston and Cambourne.

Ms Lightowlers said recycling helps people push their plastic use to the back of their minds, but that it is "quite sad how little of the plastic we put into our recycling bins is actually recycled".

Government figures suggest the UK recycling rate for waste from households stands at about 45%. Globally, less than 10% of all plastic ever produced has been recycled.

Their venture is "getting more and more popular", Ms Lightowlers said.

"It's something that I think everyone is interested in, in the back of their minds, but often I think it's difficult to prioritise," she said.

"So it's about just getting out there and explaining to people how easy it is to make the switch."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62xzk45g96o