The Animal Person Minute: On Eating Out

This is Mary Martin with the Animal Person Minute. The photo today is of—can you guess? It’s my handbag. I received it as a gift for my 40th birthday in December, and purchased at the Museum Store at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. It’s made of recycled soda tabs and the fabric is this sort of scratchy acrylic-y stuff. I’m told it is vegan.

I used to have a very colorful, conversation starter of a purse made from recycled Mexican snack bags all folded and braided together by women in poverty in Mexico, but so many people asked me about it that one day I pronounced I would give it to the next person who asked me about it, and I emptied it on the spot one day in The Body Shop. No, I don’t shop there since they were bought, and yes, I do know that the percentage of profit that the Mexican women get is woefully inadequate and even in the nonprofit world they’re being exploited.

Today’s topic is how easy I claim it is to be a vegan and socialize like a non-vegan, but how real life doesn’t always play out that way. . . .