A person can only put up with extremists for so long. In America, our society is nominally based upon acceptance and the belief that diversity makes us stronger. In order to protect our freedom, we extend it to those who don’t like freedom. We must tolerate the intolerant. But on a personal level, I’m just about at the breaking point.
If I see one more vegan soup in Simpson Dining hall, I don’t know what I’ll do.
Perhaps you know what I mean. It’s the end of a long, hard day, and you’re relieved to get into Simpson and out of that bracing wind for a little while. You grab a plate from the stack and wander over to the first buffet aisle. Gross green stuff, gross brown stuff, some gravy (but paradoxically, no mashed potatoes) and carrots with spaghetti. Nothing. You wander over to the next aisle. Nothing, nothing, grilled pineapples, nothing. They don’t have a tray of the saliva-inducing, ambrosial macaroni and cheese that you dream about at night!
You desperately give the pizza aisle a look. No, you’ve had pizza for every meal this week and it’s coming out your pores. What about fruit, you think? No, there are only very unripe pears today. You jog over to the back and see that there’s no yogurt to go with the granola, only cottage cheese (or maybe it’s just really old yogurt). The world begins to swirl as pangs of hunger and disappointment buffet you. There’s nothing.
Soup! The thought pops into your head, a faint glimmer of hope at first, but soon a fantastic plan for salvation. You stride over to get yourself a nice hot bowl of hearty minestrone but gack! You are presented a choice between vegan potato leek and vegan lentil.
Your doom is sealed, unless of course you chop up a hamburger and mix it into your soup, which is what I usually do.
Nonetheless, you can see what I mean about the adverse effect these extremists (I’m avoiding the term “vegan,” so as not to inadvertently offend our cosmic neighbors 25 light-years over) have on the more moderate members of society. Not even Fran’s cheerful assurances that I am indeed “all that” can make up for a sadly soup-less lunch. Actually, that’s not true. Fran could give me artichoke hearts mixed with raw cow hearts and it would be delicious. But she’s not there for the dinner shift, so my point still stands.
So, extremists, why not switch over to a more omnivorous lifestyle? I know that many of you take a moral issue with factory farming, and I agree with you. Mistreating farm animals is a horrible practice that we need to eradicate soon. But the fact of the matter is, hens are going to plop out an egg a day whether you eat it or not. Mama cows would still give enough milk to share between their calves and us, even if we stopped stuffing them with hormones. And unless you’re a baby, milking cows is a lot less creepy than drinking human milk.
Animal by-products can readily be consumed in an ethical way. If we do it right, we can promote the proper treatment of animals while living more moderate and well-rounded lives ourselves. Not to mention the fact that non-extremist soup tastes a lot better.
So instead of spending time and money worrying about vitamin deficiencies, I invite the extremists to focus on buying cage-free eggs and naturally produced milk. And to feast upon the delicious, delicious flesh of slaughtered animals.
adorsey@luc.edu.
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