I have engaged in Culinary bigotry. This is my confession. For these past 30 years, in the spirit of all great European culinary artists I have delighted in animal fat: from Foi Gras to pork belly, sweet breads to lamb bacon. I have pursued a life of culinary hedonism and exalted the lifestyle as superior to all. Vegetables and fruits are intended to contribute to a recipe such as a mirepoix or truffle essence but their contribution should be considered in the context of their intended purpose and I like my wine the way I like my meat: red. Meats rule and diets that exalt the exclusion of meats are blasphemous. A Vegan will always be subordinate to a Carnivore. This intolerance has defined my profession and my diet…except for the past 30 days. For 30 days I set aside my discrimination toward Vegans and became one.
As a restaurant owner, my life is tied to satisfying my customers. Vegans, with their epaulettes of culinary privilege, are revered in the restaurant world as entitled neophytes just begging to be acknowledged by Chefs as though they had discovered vegetables for their true intended purpose. The phrase, “do you have anything for vegans?” immediately elicits groans as the kitchen and service staff roll their eyes. “Yeah, THERAPY!” one cook replies. “Why must we be subject to this harassment?”, the Chef will aggrandize as the ticket rolls off the printer, “we are a meat eater’s utopia”. The rhythm of the production line stops, recipes are pulled from the mind’s shelf, and the kitchen is contorted momentarily to the benefit of the one guest who demands special attention. This drama unfolds weekly. I am guilty of not only writing the script but also hiring the actors.
As my own confessor, my admonition has been to acknowledge my sins and amend my path. At least, in good Catholic tradition, for 30 days. That was the deal I conscripted to. Borrowing the American Indian proverb to “walk a mile in their moccasins…listen or thy tongue will keep thee deaf.”, I asked the culinary Gods to grant me a momentary vacation from my familiar kitchen. I created, in my small home galley kitchen, a plant eater’s paradise, avegan oasis. I submitted to my penance. I gave myself fully to the lifestyle of a plant eater. No vegetable was safe and tofu found a new friend.
I gave myself 30 days because this amount of time allows ample opportunity to offer maximum immersion and like any subscription service, a “no commitment” opportunity to discontinue the service if not fully satisfied! For 30 days I neither consumed nor prepared any food item that was associated with animal products. No dairy, no eggs, no fish, and no tender, prime, medium rare Arizona ribeye.
My immersion began by watching the Netflix film by Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn, “What the Health”. This is an entertaining, albeit fairly controversial film, that attempts to convict the American Diabetes Foundation and the American Heart Association of being complicit in accepting donations aka bribes from the industries whose main products contribute to the diseases they are supposed to be preventing. Industries like Tyson Foods, Oscar Meyer, Dannon and Kraft are held to be complicit by Andersen and Kuhn of lobbying these organizations through funding. The results being recipes and food suggestions by the American Diabetes Foundation that feature foods known to cause cancer and heart disease.
The movie helped fuel my zeal for my new lifestyle. I bought this new script, and discarded my old one. I became a veganista, a fanatic, and like most fanatics I loved the new me and found new friends. I began reading their manifestos for a “better” life. I wore beanies and hung out at the local thrift store. I felt earthy and rustic. No less manly but now I was a friend of the earth and animals had nothing to fear from me but meat eaters…had a new prosecutor.
I found foods that tasted good, that mimicked what I was accustomed to in texture and flavor. I uncovered recipes with new ingredients like nutritional yeast, seitan, tempeh, soyrizo and condiments like mayo-veganaise. I visited the Co-ops and vegan shelves of Whole Foods and discovered a new world. I laughingly put hot dogs and hamburgers on my list and to my surprise, found them along with pastrami tofurkey and no-soy cheese! This was easy! This food is delicious. But wait, there were familiar ingredients here. Canola oil, monoglycerides, potassium sorbate, lactic acid and artificial flavors.
The month whittled by harmoniously. I quietly gorged myself on plant based foods. Read articles supporting and opposing the lifestyle. Talked to friends and felt a new kinship with long time vegans. They shared recipes and offered delicious alternatives to the foods I missed. I passed my favorite restaurant, In-n-Out burger without the usual Pavlovian temptation. I celebrated this life with fellow veganistas to the exclusion of my carnivorous brethren and revealed a familiar sin, intolerance.
This challenge was no longer a challenge except for the impending 30 day binder I had imposed on myself. “How will I wrap this up”, I thought. Four weeks into the diet and I was bewildered. What was wrong with this diet? I was missing important nutrients like B12 and K2. Carnivores have a few things right. Vegetarians were uncommitted but rationally, so was I with my “30 day challenge” perhaps 60 days? What about all of the processed foods that have invaded this diet?
I have always viewed a diet as the repetitious consumption of one or more things to the exclusion of others and THAT is what is wrong here. I had walked to another side carrying the same exclusionary bigotry I lived with on the other. The sin was the same, the confession the same and the penance would have to be different this time and forever. Diets, like lifestyles, need to be considerate of reality. In my opinion, a strictly vegan lifestyle is not considerate of reality. The reality, according to Dr. Weston Price from his book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, that “there exists no traditional culture that has ever subsisted on a strict vegetarian lifestyle.”
Day 30. Carnivore or vegan, You didn’t read this far to be admonished. This was my penance for culinary bigotry not yours and while I would like to give a nod to my new-found Vegan culture, they cannot claim a victory here. Perhaps it was the brevity of the effort or the intensity of the conscription. Either may have contributed to the ease with which I now sit here enjoying a grass fed, farm raised Elk Burger with real cheese and all the delicious sides, medium rare with a glass of oakey Napa Cabernet Sauvignon.
My motivation for this challenge was to immerse myself in understanding. I was a culinary bigot which is simply intolerance. My penance was sweet. My immersion and subsequent enlightenment brought me closer to people I did not understand. Did this immersion cement my walk in the vegan lifestyle forever? No, but it did help me understand the challenges vegans face in a world of diets gone mad, the restaurants that ignore them and the kitchen that does not understand them. It is time to write a new script for our performance as culinary artists and wandering works in progress. My script has new players, happier customers and abundance for everyone in the place they choose and I hope to be chosen.
