Vegaphobia: Look it up
Its July 2019, two men arrive at a vegan market in west London, wearing black vests emblazoned with the slogan “Veganism = malnutrition” whilst eating a raw squirrel. Yes raw. The men are seen to parade the animal holding it by its tail whilst a stunned crowd watch them being arrested. These men call themselves Pro-Meat Protesters. As every passer-by wonders why on earth people would do such a thing, it seems to be a trickier question to answer than once thought…
As I try out the famous Veganuary I have discovered that people hate vegans and it is a total cliche.
The popularity of vegan life continues to hoist people in with over 2 million people opting to remove any animal products from their diet. Yet deciding what diet to choose has become a sort of battleground with passionate carnivores on the one side and vegan activists fighting the other corner. Although it is natural to disagree, veganism seems to induce a passionate rage for some people, it's irrational, attention-seeking and restrictive and therefore we must “kill all vegans one by one” according to William Sitwell, the editor of Waitrose magazine.
The recent enmity towards vegans seems to be escalating and if you ever dare ask them what veganophobes reasons are they will usually explain something like if you don’t like meat then why are you eating something that looks like meat, or the fact that vegans have blood on their hands too with the environmental costs of planting avocados or making almond milk. Or what about all those mice we kill harvesting crops. Yes, I have been told I am hypocritical for all these reasons, which could be justifiable. But one of the main reasons I feel that people discriminate against vegans, fuelling bad publicity, is the idea that we are all smug and self-conceited when it comes to food, with the myth that vegans will tell you they are vegan without you even asking.
According to Hank Rothgerber, a social psychologist, many meat-eaters face something which is known as a meat paradox, where people are aware that eating a substantial amount of meat is bad for you health-wise and ethically. Therefore to avoid facing this moral conundrum, people pretend that meat has no link to animals or eat meat that is only organic or humanely sourced. This mentality is derailed by vegans, yet the dominance of meat eaters around the world makes veganism seem like an ideology as it isn’t “mainstream”. Meat eaters are then forced to question their rational justification of eating meat and accordingly display vegaphobia. A growing body of evidence suggests that we are particularly threatened by those who have similar morals to us and are willing to go further to adhere to them.
However, I think it’s essential to not conflate all the “hate” for vegans as the same. We are not all shouting it from the rooftops or attacking butchers and farms on a daily basis. I just want to eat what I want to eat without unnecessary judgement from others.
If I want to eat tofu bacon let me eat it in peace, please.
