Vegan lifestyle articles that discuss ways of living in peace with humans, animals, and the environment.
We vegans are still a small minority, but we're a vibrant, vocal, noticeable minority. And we're back by both science and morality. For that, and for you, I am thankful.
There are people in our circles who will be like I was then: having meat for the last time, or almost the last time, tomorrow. Something in them will awaken, as it awakened in us. And it won't take them years to get from vegetarian to vegan, the way it did for me.
Thanksgiving greetings ...
This is the strangest holiday for vegans. We're as grateful as anybody else,
and yet we know that this day means that millions of bright, curious,
affectionate birds have been slaughtered for the sake of "tradition." We
deal with this dichotomy in our individual ways, but we're all dealing with
it some way.
And this year, with its pandemic oddity, smaller family gatherings and none
at all, can add stress to our annual run-in with cognitive dissonance and
the utter cluelessness of our fellow humans, even those who "love animals."
It helps me to remember when I was one of them.
I last ate meat on Thanksgiving. It was 1968 and I'd been back in Kansas
City only a few days after eight months in London. I'd stayed for every
minute my student visa allowed and returned desolate from that city across
the Atlantic that held for me every romantic dream and magical notion. This
was where, a year and half earlier at a crowded club called Bag o' Nails,
Paul McCartney had called me by name, bought me a drink, and sang a poignant
little ditty: "I wish I weren't a Beatle, because maybe then I could have
some fun." It was where I'd taken yoga classes with a real teacher, joined
Weight Watchers and lost 30 pounds, and started on the road to
vegetarianism: still eating fish (it was a Weight Watchers rule: 5 times a
week) but no land animals.
And I found myself back in KC with Thanksgiving upon me. I was living with
my erstwhile nanny, Dede, in a studio apartment in the Art Institute
neighborhood replete with old houses and young hippies. Dede, in her
mid-seventies, had a weekend job as a caregiver for a more senior senior, so
any Thanksgiving feasting was up to me. I invited five friends who all said
yes, and it seemed obvious that there had to be a turkey or something like
it. I didn't know any vegetarians except my yoga teacher, and she was over
4,000 miles away, but surely even vegetarians took the day off for
Thanksgiving.
I'd never cooked a turkey and the apartment's small oven may not have even
held one, so I bought six rock Cornish game hens. That seemed manageable and
the "Cornish" part hearkened back to England. I cleaned and decorated and
made stuffing and sweet potatoes. The apple pies had been purchased frozen,
but they'd be hot from the oven, with ice cream on the side. I felt proud,
and grown up at 18.
There wasn't room on the dinette table for serving dishes, so we sat down to
plates filled restaurant-style. I looked at the seasonally dressed table,
taking a long, slow snapshot that's etched in my brain to this day: six
little corpses. Six precious lives. Serving turkey would have been one
murder; this was half a dozen.
I ate the meal, laughed with my friends, and accepted their compliments
about the "great food" and "pretty table." Then I was done. I became firmly
pescatarian in 1968, vegetarian in 1969. Vegan would take longer, but that
Thanksgiving was a turning point.
There are people in our circles who will be like I was then: having meat for
the last time, or almost the last time, tomorrow. Something in them will
awaken, as it awakened in us. And it won't take them years to get from
vegetarian to vegan, the way it did for me.
Tofurky reported selling six million holiday roasts this year, more than
ever in company history, despite large numbers of competing brands and
plenty of people making their own meatless entrees from scratch. We're still
a small minority, but we're a vibrant, vocal, noticeable minority. And we're
back by both science and morality. For that, and for you, I am thankful.
Love,
Victoria
Return to Articles Reflecting a Vegan Lifestyle