On “Delivery Disorders” and Nina Planck

At Time To Go Veggie, you can calculate the number of animals you can save in your lifetime, learn about all of the reasons a vegetarian diet is better for you and the entire planet, and you can read the hilarious "Answers to the most irritating questions you’ll ever be asked," which includes the ultra-annoying: How do you know vegetables don’t feel pain? and the tired protest, But plants scream when they’re cut!

I can be as sarcastic as any Brit on a good day, but I must caution against using the tone of the responses provided. Some Americans will tune out upon hearing the first hint of acrimony, and need to be more coddled. (This is one of the reasons I must forever fight the urge to move across the pond.) For instance, the response for: If everyone goes veggie, we’ll be over-run with animals! is "Oh sure! Like all those caged pigs and chickens are having a great time having sex all day long! Farmers control how many animals are born – if you don’t eat ’em, they don’t breed ’em."

That might be an appropriate, entertaining response for some people, but for others it reinforces the idea in America that vegans are angry people. And believe me, I am angry. I despise ignorance, greed, lack of integrity, and the reality that certain industries lie to their customers about what is in their food and how the animals are treated, create unhealthy products deleterious to the environment, and are rewarded with subsidies of over 70% (animal production industries–intensive, of course, and that includes dairy.) I’m enraged that nonhuman animals are used as slaves and food and even bait for each other (like rabbits for greyhounds and dogs for other dogs in dogfighting). I should be angry. You should be angry. However, leaking that anger when you’re positioned to educate someone about the realities of, well, any kind of animal use, must be done with caution.

I’ve been reading blogs and listening to podcasts, and I even watched Nina Planck talking about real food, and you should watch her to because she is a genius! She talks about becoming a vegetarian and vegan as a teenager, with a tone of, "naturally, like any silly young person, I went in the opposite direction of my mother, who it turns out was right all along," and she talks of gaining weight and getting colds and flus (during cold and flu season, oddly enough, and as if no meat-eaters were getting sick). Meanwhile, I became a vegetarian when I was a teenager, because it was the right thing to do ethically, not because I have mother issues (at least not of that variety), and I was 100 pounds at 5’1". I didn’t get sick during cold and flu season, and I was a triathlete in training. Anyone, eating any diet, can do it the wrong way–like Planck did–and gain weight and get sick. That’s not evidence of anything but her ignorance about what not to eat and how to exercise.

But the way Planck speaks, without any rage and with a sense of clarity and certainty about her beliefs (and without too much arrogance, though some is there), is something many vegans can learn from. People who don’t know anything believe her. She is believable because she isn’t ranting (and again, I can rant better than most people, so I’m not an unrelated third party here).

My question for vegans is: Do you want to let the world see your very justifiable rage, or do you want to change the world? I’m not advocating changing your message–just your delivery. What I call "delivery disorders" abound in the vegan community, and in every community passionate about raising awareness. Most people are hostile to the message from the start, probably because they perceive it as a threat to their lifestyle and they don’t want to be inconvenienced, and to get in their face and pummel them with the truth often backfires.

What I’m suggesting is to take the high road. Educate with kindness, as opened hearts open ears. If there’s one helpful thing I learned from Catholicism and Buddhism, it’s to see the Christ or the Buddha in the eyes of everyone you come in contact with–and especially people you disagree with or are hostile to you.