Animal Rights Zone

Fighting for animal liberation and an end to speciesism

There's no such thing as a 100% vegan restaurant

Two years ago I wrote the following explaining why I believe that there is no such thing as a "100% vegan restaurant".  What do you think??

 

Whose Wine, What Wine, Where the Hell Should I Dine?

 

Do you feel like I do?

 

Last week it was my birthday and I went to dinner with part of my family to acknowledge that. I say acknowledge rather than celebrate because I don’t like to receive gifts or have parties – no singing servers at the tableside for me please – so we just went to dinner, mindful of the occasion without any hoopla. I had a wonderful time, mostly because I am lucky to have a wonderful family.

 

The food was good too.

 

We ate at Dragonfly Sushi & Sake Co. here in Gainesville and were well satisfied, as always. The ‘Fly, as we call it, is simply one of the best places to eat in town. I don’t think that they treat me any differently than any of their guests, and I always feel special when I’m there. It’s great.

 

But it’s not “vegan.” Should I, as someone who is opposed to the use of other animals as things have eaten there? Stuffing innocent beings into sushi rolls surely treats them as things.

 

I used the “scare quotes” around the word vegan just then because I’m not even sure that calling a business vegan makes any sense. Trying to get everyone to agree with what vegan means in reference to a person seems hard enough, but what would a vegan restaurant be? Suppose McDonald’s opened a second version of their stores tomorrow, where no animal products at all were served. Would those new stores be vegan even when they are part of a larger corporation that absolutely isn’t? If the answer is no, that they wouldn’t be vegan, what does that mean? It means that for me to be consistent, I would have to know for sure that every penny of every dollar I spend only supports those people and businesses who think and act as I do.

 

I can’t do that. And no-one else can do it either.

 

Imagine a 100% vegan diner, which serves only vegan food and where everyone wears hemp clothes. Except the guy who washes dishes. He wears leather shoes and eats chicken wings when he gets home. The owner lets him work there as a favor to his sister – the kid is his nephew and needs the money to be able to do missionary work in Somalia after he graduates from high school.

 

I eat at the diner twice a week for lunch, they make a mean tofu-rueben sandwich. Part of the money I spend goes, in the form of wages, to the leather wearing, chicken eating future missionary. He spends the money I give him to buy his leather shoes and his chicken wings. My money directly supports the restaurant, which directly supports the kid, who directly supports the slaughter of innocents. That’s not cool.

 

If I didn’t know the kid worked there, maybe I could be excused from my direct support of things I don’t believe in. But I do know that the kid works there, because his mother and my daughter know each other.

 

The diner is the only “vegan” restaurant in town, and it’s not even vegan!!

 

Imagine that.

 

I know. I’m “crazy.” If I only had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that. It isn’t like I just started thinking “crazy” thoughts when I stopped eating meat either. I’ve been pretty much “out there” all my life. Maybe I was dropped on my head as a child. Maybe it was the fever.

 

Back to the diner.

 

Months have passed, the kid is in Somalia and my conscience is clear. Until I realize that the restaurant owner buys his supplies from the same large industrial food supply company that also sells every animal product known to man. They sell sauerkraut and tofu too, so that is what the diner buys, but every dollar the diner gives them for tofu supports their ability to sell tuna to Dragonfly and now we’re back where we started.

 

What is a vegan restaurant?

 

There aren’t any. What there are, are people who are trying as best they can to live up to the ideals they hold. What ideals do vegans hold? Let’s start with what veganism is, and what vegans are.

 

Dan Cudahy, who writes the blog Unpopular Vegan Essays, posted these definitions from the Vegan Society that sound right to me:

 

“The word 'veganism' denotes a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude — as far as is possible and practical — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.”

 

“A vegan is someone who tries to live without exploiting animals, for the benefit of animals, people and the planet. Vegans eat a plant-based diet, with nothing coming from animals - no meat, milk, eggs or honey, for example. A vegan lifestyle also avoids leather, wool, silk and other animal products for clothing or any other purpose.”

 

Show me how anyone living in a complex, interconnected, sprawling consumerist society which thinks nothing at all of exploiting nonhuman, as well as human animals, can ever escape contributing in some way to that exploitation. It cannot be shown. There is no way to avoid it – the problem runs too deep, it is too pervasive and it is nearly universal.

 

People may think I’m “crazy,” but one would have to be actually disconnected from reality to think they could ever completely and permanently escape the multitudinous long arms of animal exploitation.

 

But as I repeatedly say, that doesn’t mean that I give up trying.

 

When my family invites me to dinner as they did last week, should I accept, knowing that wherever I go I will be supporting things I don’t believe in? When I am invited to share the day celebrating my granddaughter’s first birthday, as I was privileged to do yesterday, should I refuse to go because I know that there will be hamburgers served?

 

Those are difficult questions. Anyone who is trying to live in accord with what is unfortunately a marginalized worldview has to face the same difficult questions every day. I can only answer these questions for myself, as they arise, taking each one individually. There are no rules that will always apply, in every case.

 

It will be a better world when these questions are not so difficult, but while we work for that day, we have to live in the here and now.

 

Will I attend the “Wild Game Feast” that the Rotary Club hosts every fall? No, I’m not going to an event focused on a celebration of eating others. Will I patronize a restaurant at the invitation of friends when they know that its only menu options for me are a (cold) baked potato and a boring salad? No, and I won’t join my family there either. I’m not interested in participating in my own marginalization, and people who respect me should respect that.

 

But when my family or good friends - who understand my thinking - invite me to dinner because they want to show me that they care for me, I will probably show up and enjoy the good company and the few good vegan offerings at an imperfect restaurant in a decidedly imperfect world.

 

Maybe next year I won’t go to the ‘Fly for my own birthday, and maybe I won’t celebrate my granddaughter’s second one with the rest of her family either. But considering all the other exploitation that I am an unwilling participant to in this world, as it stands now, I see little harm in partaking of a little joy.

 

 

 

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