Praxis is when theory becomes action. On this blog, we’ve been discussing many different ecofeminist theories. We’ve talked about ways women, nature and animals are oppressed. Today, I am going to take action to try to help in one way. Given the current pandemic going on in our world, lots of activism must take place in our homes. As we’ve discussed before, one person can make a change. Change begins with ourselves. I’ve decided that to make a difference, I am going to go vegan for a week in order to save animals and help the environment. I love animals, yet I eat them. I understand the hypocrisy, and I am not proud of it. I used the calculator on https://thevegancalculator.com/#calculator and saw how much I could help by avoiding animal products for one week! Why not try it?
I have Celiac, so I cannot eat gluten. That means most meat substitutes are out for me. I will be sticking with tofu and beans as my sources of protein. Honestly, I don’t really eat much of a balanced diet anyway. Since being quarantined in my house for the past few weeks, a lot of my eating has been thoughtless and from boredom regardless. This will be good for my health overall to plan my meals and consider the source. Tomorrow, I will go grocery shopping and pick up more produce and things like rice. I will also be buying premade vegan frozen things. I live with my mom and we eat a lot of meals together, so this will end up having a trickle effect over to her as well!
Hi Mandi!
Great minds think alike. I also chose to eat vegan for a period of 5 days (or longer). Is there a specific organization you are following that supports your activism? I like that you’ve found this calculator that shows you how many animals you saved. Thinking about this further I also wished I did something specifically with how animals are treated on factory farms. I too love animals and never thought about the mistreatment they suffer as a result of my diet. It’s sickening when you look into it. I think I agree with Gaard when she mentions that our diet is actually based on privilege. People in other countries suffer due to Western countries like ours who eat more than our share of meat. In addition to eating vegan I also decided I wanted to have a “vegan dinner party” that will end up being take out instead for my friends. I asked them to pay what they would pay for dinner during night out and will donate that to an organization I researched online. I admire that you decided to make a small personal activist gesture and I felt t was most appropriate for me to do the same based on the fact I’m not tech savvy and this type of activism was something I knew I could manage and wouldn’t become frustrated with. Good Luck with your vegan diet (it’s not easy-I’ve been doing this since Monday)! Maybe look into an organization that supports your cause!
Hi Mandi,
Great decision to go vegan even for a little while. Like the vegan calculator you posted, even one day makes a difference in the lives of animals. I decided to take a similar idea but to commit to gradually becoming vegetarian by way of flexitarian first and then graduating to full on vegan down the road. I’m not 100% off meat, I do eat it only a few days a week. One way to raise more awareness could be to tweet or share the vegan calculator with your social media circle and ask them to try to go vegan once or twice per week. If we could somehow spread the idea that even taking small steps toward limiting our meat consumption would save lives, and help our planet, I bet more people would commit to it. Pushing people to quit all meat when a lot of us have grown up in families where meat was the at center of most every meal.
I have some vegan friends who make the most amazing meals that you’d never guess were vegan. Delicious vegan desserts and you can’t tell that they aren’t full of cream or eggs. I know for me, cooking is sometimes stressful if you’re not familiar with how to cook vegan. You have an increased challenge because of your issue with celiac. However, there are still so many options out there for you. As part of my activism, I’ve produced a YouTube video asking for commitments from family and friends to skip meat on some level. Even if just once per week. Every little bit helps. That’s where I think if you took this to your social media and encouraged others to try for one day or five days, or perhaps even make it a challenge with your friends. People love to do social media challenges.
There’s an excellent movie that I watched when researching this project. It’s available on Kanopy which you can join free with your UMassD student login info here’s the site: https://www.kanopy.com/
The movie is called the End Of Meat. It has a lot of great information about the meat industry and the importance of limiting meat consumption, for our health and planet.
Hi Mandy,
this will most likely affect your mom’s eating habits as well, like you said, which is the perfect way of leading by example. You should just start your vegan diet without telling her and in addition to recording how many animals you will be saving, you should also record her reaction to your new diet. If she decides to join you on the journey, you should also record how many animals she saved.
Also, in addition to stating how the diet went and the amount of animals you saved, you should also include how you feel physically after your new eating habits, if you recommend it or not, and whether or not you will be vegan from now on. This can give other people an idea of what being vegan is like and whether or not it’s worth it. You can make it into an experiment.