For some, vegan is more than eating

Dec 2018 — This month I was forced to expand my understanding of vegan. I thought it meant a person who refuses to eat animal products, but for some vegans it also means not promoting the use of animal products.

Vegans who adhere to that practice do not use cosmetics, health or beauty products that are made from animal products; some don’t wear leather footwear. On December 8 I attended the second annual Vegan Decoded Fair and met South Chicagoland vendors who sell/create vegan nonfood items. The fair was held at Home of Life MB Church, 4650 W Madison in Chicago. Most wore leather footwear. (Veganism is a gradual process.)

The organizer, Dominique Henderson, is the niece of the pastor. Although from South Chicagoland, she tries to inform folks on the South and West sides of Chicago about vegetarianism. She dealt with myths at the fair; then, she introduced both the food and nonfood vendors and those who sold vegan beauty/health products.

Entertainment was also provided.

Neal Barnard’s Foods for Life and Will Tuttle’s World Peace Diet offer more ways to be vegan. For example, a few days before my second colonoscopy, I learned that gelatin is made from animal products. The day before my exam, had I read Barnard’s book, I could’ve substituted agar-agar for the Jello mix that the hospital told me to eat.

Tuttle’s book suggested that avoiding animal products would be easier if we referred to farm animals as individuals, not things. Put that way, factory farm conditions for the animals are equivalent to those on past slave ships or poorly ventilated trucks for fugitives.

Carrying his analogy of animals as individuals, Tuttle noted our disgust with cannabalism, which factory farm animals are forced to engage in. Noting our reluctance to wear shoes made of human skin, he encouraged wearing shoes not made from animal products. Again, his reasoning was to decrease incentives for factory farms.

Tuttle called better treatment of farm animals a precursor to better treatment of all people around the world. (I can recall that childhood animal tormentors often were bullies at school.) He also pointed out that some followers of Eastern religions have no problem coexisting with bugs. (I’m not there yet.)