Diet as Virtue Signal

The Fine Art of Food Shaming

Everyone and everything eats. It is one of the basic facts of life on our planet. It seems simple enough. Until you try to share a meal. Until you post a photo of a roast chicken on social media with a recipe.

Or even a recipe for a salad that contains cheese. Even if you include IN THE NOTES that vegans can leave out the cheese or use a vegan analog. That is not enough. Enter the food shamers.

They must scold you about eating animals or animal products of any kind. Because you never realized where meat or eggs came from. Or maybe because you are a horrible human being that doesn’t care about animals or worse yet REVELS in causing them suffering.

The last few days have seen a powerful heat wave. So I posted this recipe for Watermelon Salad:
The perfect heatwave dinner: Watermelon Salad. Cut the melon in bite sized chunks. The cucumber in small squares. Chiffonade the basil. Cut the feta in small squares. Mix and squirt with lime, drizzle with good olive oil.

I like sheep feta, but if you don't, use cow. Or if you are vegan, leave it out.

Basil is the fresh herb best suited to this dish, but I suppose in a pinch fresh mint would work. They are the same family.

So far, so good.
Until the comments started. Of all the times I have been dogpiled on social media, the militant vegans have been the most unrelentingly vicious. But usually they don’t get exercised by salad. Unless they do.

There were a few suggestions for vegan Feta analogs. Those are fine. Simply informative. And then this, from a commenter I will not name:
”Sheep/cows die... so that you can eat feta cheese. Try the vegan version.”

Here is my response:
”People must decide about their own diets. I generally post several versions of a recipe if that is possible. I have to be able to make food posts that appeal to a wide variety of people. This includes both omnivores and vegans.
As for me--I have a disease called MCAS. It is non-fatal but incurable. I MUST have some animal protein. How do I know this? Because I was entirely vegan 3 times in my life. Once from 1966-1969 when I was a child and before the word existed.
Twice later on when I wanted to try it again.
Each time I suffered from failing health. Weakness. MCAS flares. And worse.
OF COURSE I am aware of the cost of animal protein. We live on a wondrous and terrible planet. A place where everything dies and where creatures eat each other. And we too are animals in this web.
I hate the part that dictates what carnivores eat. Or omnivores. I was aware at age 10 and that is why I adopted a diet that did not even have a name at that time. But it did not work for me. So I am left envying my cat, who eats the whole freshly killed mouse with relish and no guilt.
Food shaming is a nasty thing. You never know why other people make the choices they do--or even if their behaviors are actually choices at all. That is why I suppress comments on my threads that do it.
I support everyone having the relationship with food that they need. I expect that position to be respected.”

I have not received a reply. I would not be surprised if she blocked me. This is a form of aggression that is extremely hard to address. I have been refraining from answering for years due to my own ambivalence about an omnivorous diet.

I know the stats about the effect of meat production. It is clear that the factory system is an abomination. But dealing with this aspect does not require or even imply veganism.

As to the “analogs” they have big problems. They are heavily processed. There taste is not pleasant, at least not to me. It is like a nonfat decaf latte. Why bother.

It turns out that the relationship between livestock, humans, and the earth is more complex than a meme. Proper practices with small herds actually helps regenerate grasslands. This is just one example.

What we have lost, through overpopulation and a religious devotion to technology is the basic ability to live in enough harmony with the natural world to know what is best for us and the rest of the biosphere.

I agree that a plant-forward diet is the best option now, in the face of climate collapse. But that does not necessarily mean a vegan diet. First of all, I won’t eat analogs. The world of produce is already bursting with flavor. The “plant” side of my diet is free of fake anything. About 80% of the time the animal aspect of a meal is more of a condiment, like the Feta in the Watermelon Salad.

I eat, and will continue to eat, enough meat, fish, and dairy to keep my particular body healthy. Yes, killing animals for food bothers me. No, I can’t just stop if I want to maintain my dubious hold on health. And I should not have to explain that to anyone. Nobody should.