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Animal Rights Protest at Kutztown University (April, 2019)

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Animal Rights Protest at KU

(Quick disclosure I do voice some of my personal opinions in this piece. This is just my opinion and people have the right to disagree, in no way am I trying to teach or persuade anyone on a topic, rather I am just trying to inform. )

So, I originally did not plan to make another post however when I was heading to do some homework, I passed by a protest that had to do with animal rights. The first thing I noticed before I saw the protesters was a cop car, they were close by watching to make sure no drama started. When I asked Sherly Petrillo a vegan animal right activist (linked is her Instagram)  and group organizer of the Lehigh Valley Animal Save organization what the protest was about she explained that many people do not know what type of suffering animals go through in order to be food for people. She was very kind and was willing to answer my questions I did ask permission if I could write about her and the protest on my blog and she said yes.

There was a group of people wearing mask, at first I thought it was a figure of expression saying that you have to look behind the mask of media in order to find the truth, which I do believe was try but I also believe it was for the protesters protection, so that no one would be able to identify them when the protest was over. I say this because quite often when people don’t agree with other views, they tend to get offensive and unfortunate sometimes aggressive. The protesters were also holding screens displaying some of the torture and killing that happens to animals.

Right before I was about to leave a student came up to one of the Sheryl in a way that I would call opposed. His tone when asking to explain what was going on seemed more as if he did not want to really understand but wanted to make a joke of the whole situation. This is something that disappointed me. People have the right to voice their opinion, and in no way were the protesters being aggressive.

Now I will say the protesters did pick the location right in front of Cub Café and obviously, Cub Café does serve animal products such as meat, dairy, and eggs. I assume they did this for a reason making people think about what they are going to eat before they go into the cafe or what they already ate as they were walking out. In any case I believe both the student and the protesters deserve to voice their opinion in a respectful and intellectual way.

I also talked to the president of the vegetarian club on campus and she explained that there are around 40 members in the club, and that the club was fairly new. You can find more information on EngageKU.com.

To connect to my thesis, I did not see many people asking questions about the protest, many students ignored or just looked briefly and then walked away. Often if an issue does not affect the person personally people tend to disregard it.

Even though this was a very brief post I just really wanted to mention this event. I also think it is important to know that freedom of speech is very important and should never be put down. Personally, I feel as long as there is no violence or unnecessary hate speech, having a safe protest were people can learn and discuss a topic that they may have not been aware of is something that is crucial to continue in this country.

(I have also attached a very short video of the protest and a picture of two informational cards about the group)

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Freestyle Post #4

I found this article while reading Teen Vogue online and I found it very interesting. In summary a vegan blogger gets ice cream for a child who was crying. Instead of seeing her actions as kind and generous people started to bash her. People went on to twitter an questioned her vegan lifestyle. Zara the vegan blogger responded casually saying its not that big of a deal. I personally did not see that Zara giving ice cream to a child made her any less vegan if anything it just makes her a nice person. However that just my opinion, hopefully you are able to read the full article and form your own opinion.  

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/vegan-blogger-shamed-for-buying-ice-cream-for-a-child

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Freestyle Post#3: Vegan Youtubers Quit the lifestyle

There is a large population of vegan youtubers however recently a bunch have decided to quite the vegan lifestyle for various reasons. I personally find it odd that all of a sudden a bunch of people decided to quite the lifestyle all at once. This makes be wonder again if veganism for millennials is just a trend. I myself found out about veganism through YouTube and the people I  watched had a big influence on how I went about being vegan, what I ate, wear I shopped ect. So many of the youtubers viewers are also deciding to quite veganism. However, is it because the diet does not work for them or are they just quitting because there favorite youtuber is. Doctor Garth Davis a vegan medical and weight loss doctor gives his opinion on the subject

https://vegannews.co/vegan-doctor-slams-youtubers-who-quit-veganism-and-calls-them-ridiculous/ 

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Freestyle Post #2: Meat Substitutes

I decided to make a post about this subject because I myself was curious as to why vegans eat meat substitutes. If a person believes that eating meat is inhumane and cruel why would they want to eat a product that is supposed to taste like the animal that they do not want to kill. I watched a video by a women called “Why vegans eat meat substitutes(hypocrites?)” this is not a formal video it is purely an opinion from a person who identifies as vegan. Personally, I think this is the best source because I am trying to understand how people who identify as vegan feel about certain issues.

The are a couple main reasons mentioned in the video as to why this woman believes vegans eat meat substitutes. The first being that taste buds are hard to change. She states that many people who are vegan were not raised as vegans therefore they grew up eating animal products. So even if they decided to go vegan when they got older, because they did not want to harm animals, they still will enjoy the taste. She seems to make the two senses of sight and taste different things. She says that taste buds are just taste buds therefore if you like the taste of bacon it is okay as long as you do not harm the animal. Another reason she gives is convenience. She says eating meat substitutes is an easy way to get protein in her diet. Even though vegetables have protein you have to eat a much larger amount and it can take more time to cook or steam vegetables. For her heating up a vegan burrito in the microwave makes her busy lifestyle more convenient.

Another main reason as to why vegans enjoy meat substitutes is it makes it easier to transition. For many newbie vegans there is sense of urgency to change their lifestyle to veganism as quickly as possible due to the abuse that happens to animals. However, going cold turkey is not as easy as it seems.  Therefore, having food that still feels similar to meat makes the transition smoother and quicker.  

There are many brands that produce animal free produce such as Gardein, Beyond Meat, Tofurky, MorningStar, Sweet Earth and many more. I decided to look at these brands websites and see what they were promoting. When looking at MorningStars website and their product message their goal is to create delicious vegan and vegetarian food that helps the environment. Gardien website not only promotes a healthy lifestyle and helping create a better environment they also are involved in giving back. They have events that bring awareness to environmental issues, animal issues and promoting the vegan lifestyle. So I guess when someone chooses to eat Gardien they are also supporting these type of events.

In another post written by Ed Coffin called “Why Do Vegans Eat ‘Fake’ Meat?” published in Huffpost online. Coffin says that the answer is simple he states “vegans did not stop eating animals because they didn’t enjoy the taste…. vegans chose to stop consuming and using animals on an ethical basis (It should be noted that there are some people who eat a plant-based diet for health reasons, but these people are not “vegan” as they still use animals in other ways.)”. Though people may still disagree with this mindset this is an opinion a lot of vegans identify with.

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Freestyle Post #1: Cruelty Free Makeup

One topic that I want to discuss is animal cruelty in the makeup industry. There are many makeup brands that have decided to go animal cruelty free such as Glossier, Milk Makeup, and Elf. When saying that a makeup company is cruelty free this also could mean that the company is only using products that have already been tested to not have harmful effects on human skin. So even though they did not test on animals someone else did in order for them to find out which ingredients are able to be applied to humans

I often hear girls and guys say that they want to start using animal cruelty free makeup, yet they still consume animal products. Now I am not judging this decision, what I want to understand is why they do not want to endorse makeup products that test on animals but will still eat meat, and what is the difference they see between the two.

So, I did a very unofficial survey with friends and random people on campus that I know wear makeup. The short survey consisted of these questions

1.     Do you wear makeup?

2.     Do you intentionally look for makeup that is cruelty free?

3.     If you do look for cruelty free makeup do, they consume animal products?

4.     If they do consume animal products what difference do you see between animal testing and eating animal products?

Again, I want to say that I am not judging or going into this survey or post with any biases this is purely just to understand people’s thinking about this topic. I had a variety of people I interviewed some that wore makeup and some that did not. Some of the girls I surveyed wore makeup and said they did not look for cruelty free products because when shopping it was not something they intentionally thought about. Others said they would rather have animals be tested then humans.

I also interviewed a girl that said she was starting to look for cruelty free makeup but did consume meat. When I asked her why she choose to eat meat but looked for cruelty free makeup she responded that she didn’t have enough will power to stop eating meat. But she wanted to help in some way even if it was minor.

This small sampling of people did not give me the final answer to any of my questions but it did tell me that all the people that participated in the survey know that animals are used to test products before they are given to humans, and they all see it as cruelty. So why do we keep going back and buying more, and it hit me that the way make-up is advertised and presented is so alluring that you stop thinking about how the product is made. It is like going into a candy store when I enter Sephora. The displays and the colors; the smell of the perfumes and taste of the lipsticks; and let’s not talk about the packaging. I’ve bought things just because they look so pretty. How do we fight these multibillion-dollar companies that spend millions on advertising that intentionally distracts the buyer from the inhumane process that took place in order to put the product on the shelf?  

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Academic Article Post:

The first article I chose was “Real Men Don’t Eat (Vegetable) Quiche: Masculinity and the Justification of Meat Consumption.” By Hank Rothgerber from Bellarmine University published in 2012 by the American Psychological Association. This article discusses the logic as to why men feel that eating meat makes them more masculine. The article included a lot of data and surveys. Rotherberger and his colleagues interviewed a pool of men and women to discover the difference in amount of meat eaten between the two genders and what were their reasons as to why they choose to eat meat. Many of the men interviewed felt they had to justify as to why they eat meat. Many of the answers were based around the fact that animals are inferior, meat is necessary for health, and religious reasons. As for women they usually dissociated themselves form the animals, by not thinking about what happens to the animal before it dies.

The next article I read was “Masculinity and Meat Consumption: An Analysis Through the Theoretical Lens of Hegemoic Masculinity and Alternative Masculinity Theories” by Kristen C. Sumpter from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington published in 2015 by Sociology Compass. This article discuss why men are more likely to eat meat, particularly red meat. The article talks about the historical and contemporary differences between men and women’ consumption of meat. In discussing how men display masculinity Sumpter gives responsibility to media, education, legislation, and discrimination. She mentions how even in magazine such as “Men’s Health” promote masculinity through the size of ones muscles, eating meat, drinking beer, watching sports and displaying sexual conquest. She also brings up the idea that hunting was the first technique when gathering meat. This was usually done by the men of the family. Therefore, associating hunting with meat and masculinity. Sumpter also mentions the concept that meat equals power. She refers to European history when only the rich could consume meat and during wars meat was collected for the soldiers to stay strong, disregarding basic civilians, women and children.

I decided to choose these two articles because I wanted to talk about a certain topic that was somewhat uncommon. I do not think most people believe they associate food with gender, but when talking about the topic it seems that we as a society do have certain assumption of what type of food certain people should be eating. This topic the effect on how men that identify as vegan are viewed. They might feel judged by there style of eating. This is something that one might think is odd especially when associating it with a man’s masculinity, but I think it this says a lot about society and how they assign gender roles to almost everything including food. This falls into my thesis question on whether society views veganism as socially acceptable. Based on these articles it does seem that there is a bias for men to eat meat rather then be vegan. This is not saying that everyone believes in this mind set since there is a very large amount of vegan men in the united states and all around the world. However, it seems people will be more shocked to hear a man say they are vegan compared to women and just saying they are vegan in general may come as a surprise.

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Primary Source Post

The primary source I have decided to use is an episode on UK’s Channel 4 television show called Dispatch, that talks about certain social issues. This particular episode is titled “The Truth About Vegans”. I am focusing on one particular part of the show where Ed Winters, an animal rights activist is featured. In his podcast Winters discusses his opinion about the episode. Winters feels they made vegans look like violent extremist and felt this was an unfair portrayal of the community.

I decided to watch the show and see for myself how the show represented Winters and the vegan community. The show was mainly talking about a certain group of veganism that tend to be more hostile and aggressive with their protesting. These protesters/activists have looted butcher shops and stores that sell animal products. They have trespassed and released animals from farms and processing factories. They also showed clips of these protestors comparing people who participate in the consumption of animals as Nazi’s creating a holocaust.

In the show they introduce Ed Winters as the current biggest influential animal rights activist in Britain at the moment. They call him an extremist. It is noticeable that they only took certain parts of his speech that they felt would make the biggest impact. For instance, they included a part where he says, “I promise you a future exist where the last animal farm is closed and burned to the ground”. In my opinion I feel they did not represent Winters negatively. They did call him an extremist which honestly, he is. He is very open about his opinion on animals’ rights and truly wants to make a movement. This is very different compared to the person who wants to be vegan because it helps their acne, or the diet helps their health.

The show was a primary source for me to see how society through media views veganism. After watching the show, I then used Winters podcast, for a secondary source. By listening to Ed who identifies as a vegan I was then able to see how he feels people view not only him but vegans in general. Ed was not happy with the way veganism was represented, he felt that the producers only showed a small percentage of people who identify as vegans.

I also want to say that I understand that these activists who are quite aggressive with their opinion is only a small portion of people who identify as vegan. However, I think this is important to make note that there may be people who don’t know much about veganism and the only information they see is this episode. This episode does not make a good impression on the vegan community. On the other hand, I do think it is important to show many sides to a situation and I do think this show had the right to show a different side to veganism. In the end it is just important to make sure that people are fully educated to on a certain topic and realize that they should not take one source or one person’s word as a final decision maker.

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Book Review: Mind If I Order The Cheeseburger?

Sherry F. Colb’s book “Mind if I Order the Cheeseburger: And other questions People Ask Vegans”  published in 2013 by Lantern Books is a very clear decisive written text that is accessible to a broad reading level. Sherry’s writing style is very casual as if you are talking to a friend. She has comprehensive knowledge of veganism and informs the reader about all the major issues that come up when considering becoming a vegan or even just wanting to learn the thinking behind the lifestyle.

Sherry Colb, is a professor of law and a former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun. This previous experience allows her to be good at reasoning and being practical about a topic. Her book does not seem to push the idea of being vegan on the reader however, the way she writes makes it hard not to engage in an internal conversation with her about the topic. After reading a chapter you definitely feel at an end point in your thought process, even if you have a very strong opinion about something you can’t help but feel a little shaken by her thoughts on the topic. Again, she does not pressure the reader to agree with her, but she is able to give us a point of view that maybe the reader did not think of before.

If you are already a vegetarian and want to take the next step and become vegan, Colb reviews all the reasons she feels are good reasons to become vegan. Her arguments are compelling, yet she is not ponderous. Colb adds humor to her writing while informing us about important issues. For example, she discusses the argument that animals are not as complex creatures as the human race is. Sherry agrees saying unlike humans, other animals cannot do calculus, organize a complex criminal justice system, plan for retirement, or write a novel, she also lets us know that when it comes to suffering, pain, and sorrow, none of those abilities matter. By using these examples, she makes it easy for the reader to understand. I found myself nodding and agreeing as she made her points. Colb is not somebody who thinks anyone who eats meat and is not an animal rights activist, is simply closed minded, stubborn or ignorant. Colb’s goal isn’t so much as to convince the reader to agree with veganism views but to enlighten the reader and create discussion.

Colb understands the other side as well. This is fairly different from the usual vegan books, articles, or blog post I have read that are clear about their aversion for people who do not agree with the vegan lifestyle. She announces her point in an expressive and intelligent way: “Just as vegans value the lives and experiences of nonhuman animals, however different those lives may be from our own, so we must understand and empathize with the feelings, associations, and anxieties of non-vegan humans.”

She does not let anyone off the hook either. Colb is quick to come up with a response making it hard to meet an argument that she has not already expected. She skillfully thinks through problems such as why vegans avoid harming animals but are seemingly indifferent to the suffering of plants. Is there a difference? She is very good at getting us to see what we already know intuitively.

Colb’s starts off each chapter or sub heading with a question, open ended argument, or specific topic relating to a question many non-vegans may ask. There are many in-text citations in the book showing that Colb did research and explored other people’s ideas while creating her own. She used a variety of sources such as books, research reports, articles, and philosophical arguments etc. This shows that she is willing to look at different point of views and she wants to make sure that her context has more depth then just her writing what she feels is right. She then concludes with a more personal story about her experience with people questioning why she was vegan. She discusses her frustrations at first with dealing with peoples questions about her lifestyle. She then explains how she came to her current view on the topic and finishes off with what she hopes people will get after reading her book “And I hope that by sharing my own thoughts and answers to the most common questions that I have heard about veganism, I will help support other vegans and future vegans in their respective journeys toward greater peace on earth.”

I am glad I choose this book because I felt even though Colb’s opinion leans towards pro-veganism she does not undermine others who do not agree with her. Since my topic is about how society views veganism, I believe this book really observes serious questions that people have about veganism. This book overall is a great source for learning about veganism without feeling judged about your own view point on the topic and helps people who are vegan be able to have respectiful and informative conversations with those who are not vegan.

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Op-Ed Review Post

The first article I read was Death by Veganism by Nina Planck published by the New York Times on May 21, 2017 discusses the death of a 6-week-old baby boy due to his parents having him on a vegan diet. Planck discusses the importance of providing a newborn baby with the right nutrition. Planck states that if a newborn lacks vitamins such as B12, A, D, calcium, zinc, healthy amino acids, and omega 3 fats that are found in products such as milk, meat and fish the baby could suffer from detrimental side affects such as “retarded growth, rickets, and nerve damage”.  

Planck discusses even countries that incorporate more vegan friendly foods such as India also include eggs and milk in their diet in order to get the right proteins. Because of this Planck believes “a vegan diet is not adequate in the long run”. Planck’s article is a completely opinion-based article. She does have experience with being vegan and says herself that she choose not to be vegan while pregnant. She gives facts about nutrition but does not say where she got the information from. She also does not cite where she got the news about the death of the child. 

I think Planck’s audience is possibly mothers to be who are vegan, and anyone else interested in the topic. I believe Planck’s reason for writing this article was to inform people about an issue that she feels is important. This was defiantly an opinion paper and I felt it was fair. I believe Planck has the right to feel the way she does about this topic and I can see her concerns. I think the only issue I had with the article was the lack of sources provided. She made some statements that are supposed to be factual but did not provide any links or evidence that the information was true.   

The second article I read was a College Op-Ed called We Have to Make Veganism ‘Intersectional’ by Katherin Timpf published by the National Review on April 6, 2017. In this article Timpf expresses her views on an article she read called “Vegans must feed everyone, not just wealthy white people” by Audrey Larcher. Timpf agrees with Larcher that there needs to be more representation of people who identify as vegan. Based on Timpf’s belief’s mainstream medias image of someone who is vegan is someone who is white, slender, and some type of hipster which she states is “a major, major, problem”. 

Even though Timpf agrees with Laurcher’s article she does not believe that all vegans will be able to unite in one happy vegetable loving family because not everyone is vegan for the same reason. Since this was a response article, I think Timpf did a good job at expressing her beliefs. She does use many quotes from Larchers’ article, but she does give credit and backs up the quote with her own ideas. I believe this was definitely an opinion paper because someone else could have had a difference response to Laurcher’s article and agreed with her unlike Timpf. As for an audience I think anyone that is interested in veganism will be interested in this article and will be able to form their own opinion. I do not think there was any faulty evidence or problems with the article because there are no facts presented in the article. 

Both of these articles talked about veganism but had different point of views. The topics were also completely different. As a similarity both looked at a negative side of veganism. However, Timpfs article did not say that veganism was not a healthy lifestyle she strictly just talked about a specific issue that takes place in the vegan community, which is prejudice. In this case Planck now has another argument as to why the vegan lifestyle is not good.

However, Planck does say that she believes many of these parents that have their children on vegan diets are ignorant. In some way Timpfs article talks about ignorance. Many people don’t understand that white hipsters were not the original creators of veganism. Yes, Dr. Watson and his colleagues came up with the term ‘veganism’ but the lifestyle of veganism has been around for many years and many other countries such as India, Ethiopia, and East Asian countries, incorporated vegan based foods such as soy centuries before it came to Whole Foods. In this case people need to be less ignorant and educate themselves more on where veganism came from and truly analyze the reason they are deciding to participate or not participate in the lifestyle.

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Documentary: Cowspiracy

The documentary I choose to watch is “Cowspiracy”. Kip Andersen produced this documentary and released it on June 26, 2014. Andersen explains in the beginning of the documentary the journey he went on years before making the documentary to live an environmentally sustainable lifestyle, however he did not see a difference in the world around him. He decided to delve deeper into the topic of global warming and environmental issues and came across an article that said agriculture was a major factor as to why there was so much C02 in the air.

In the documentary he gives many facts about greenhouse gasses and the devastating affect they are currently having on the planet. He uses graphs and animation to help the audience visualize things such as how much water it takes to produce a pound of steak. This documentary predicts cataclysmic world events that will drive most of humanity and animals alike to the brink of extinction. He gets this information from legitimate sources such as the United Nations environmental reports of 2009, and other scholarly peer reviewed journals. In 2009 World Bank reported that human induced greenhouse gases that result mostly from animal agriculture were 51% and not 18 % as the UN had stated in their report. Andersons quest was to find out if environmental organizations were so concerned about the health of the planet why were they dismissing such a large factor.

Andersen interviews a variety of organization, most were willing to have some communication with him but all except one were willing to say that the major cause of greenhouse gases was due to raising livestock and the grazing land needed to feed these animals.

Many of the interviews were done in the person. Andersen visited the persons work area usually interviewing them in their offices. The interviews were personal, professional and honestly a bit awkward. Especially since many of the people Andersen interviewed were unsure if they could answer a question or not due to company policy.

Andersen spoke to many company representatives such as Heather Cooley, the Water Program Co-Director of Pacific Institute, Manucher Alemi, Chief of Water Use and Efficiency Branch at CA Dept. Water Resources, and Kamyar Guivetchi who is also a part of the CA Dept. Water Resources. Guivetchi even agreed with Andersen that the animal foot print is one of the leading causes of environmental issues however, he also stated that he does not believe that people will stop eating meat because of “the way government is set up here” quite early on in the documentary.

Andersen interviewed these people of high positions because he wanted his audience to understand his urgency about the topic. It is obvious that if the experts are unsure of the situation or seem secretive of a topic then there is something wrong. Andersen even interviewed people that did not want their face and names to be public due to fear of retaliations. This made a big impact on my experience while watching these interviews. I too felt the seriousness of this issue.  

Andersen also interview people who agreed with the vegan lifestyle and were open about their opinion of the topic. Some people Andersen interviewed were Kirk R. Smith Professor of Global Environmental Health at University of California Berkeley, and Dr. Richard Openllander environmental researcher and author of “Comfortably Unaware”. Andersen was showing the audience that there are educated people on both sides however it seems that one side is under scrutiny and if they say anything that may bring a bad reputation to companies that produce meat, there will be consequences.

Andersen did go a different group of first-hand sources of the meat industry and agriculture. He talked to farmers and laborers that worked in the field. These were done outside in a more relaxed area. He showed footage of animals getting hauled off to get killed or being stuck in inhumane positions such as cows so smushed together that they could not even sit. Then in contrast he would show animals that were free and healthy. Andersen’s goal is to change peoples mind about the meat industry and realize the harm it causes not only to the environment but also to the animals. By editing his documentary this way, it really plays with people’s emotion seeing animals that free and safe, compared to animals being tortured. Since Andersen in trying to persuade the audience that the cattle industry is harmful to the environment and in his opinion inhumane, he does a good job at showing the seriousness and gruesome side to the industry.  

Salazar Lopez Program Director of Amazon Watch, an environmental organization was the only one that finally told Andersen the truth behind the cover-up.  She told Andersen the level of power that organizations have over mainstream media. Lopez reported in Brazil that the level of murders that took place when people tried to speak up about the issue was over 1,100 people in the past 20 years. 

(Dorothy Stang, Brazilian member of the Congregation of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, was murdered in Anapu, a city in the state of Pará, in the Amazon Basin of Brazil. ) 

I believe Andersen did a great job in presenting his message. He did a lot of research and went to many first-hand sources. Throughout this film I started to wonder how much influence these same organizations have with the kind of information that gets trickled down to mainstream media such as magazines, advertising, and other forms of mass media. How much or lack thereof, of information has influenced how we as a society view being vegan. If we received positive messages from these outside influences would these companies, see this as a threat to the cattle industry? I cannot help but think about the fallback that Oprah Winfrey experienced when she promoted not eating beef on her talk show. Would it become more mainstream to be vegan if this information was common knowledge to the average consumer?  

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Librarian Meeting:

I met with Dr. Gomez for my library assignment. We first discussed my topic “Is Veganism Socially Acceptable” she asked me questions such as what type of sources was I looking for and what was my history with veganism. She seemed interested in my topic and seemed to understand what point of view I was going for with my blog. I discussed that I needed a variety of sources such as scholarly journals, books, peer reviewed papers etc. We then went onto the Kutztown library search engine. This guarantees that I will get scholarly and professional information that is more reliable then searching questions on google. Dr. Gomez then showed me the different web search programs provided by the Kutztown online library. There was a large variety I could choose from, we went on ProQuest, JSTOR, and EBSCO. I have used these sites since I’ve started college and I am always able to find a large variety of information on any topic I have chosen to research.

Often when we searched for veganism, we saw that the information that was coming up had to do with nutrition, health, and the environment though this was all very informative it did not go with my topic. I noticed during my search that the scholarly journals would have more factual information whereas the books would be more personal writing. I also made sure to be aware of then the sources were published. I personally was looking for more current information and perspectives on veganism, thankfully many of the sources I found were from the past ten years.

As we were searching, we decided it would be best to write down words that we could use with the word vegan to get a more specific result with my searches. The list consisted of words such as stereotype, social aspect, feminism, rhetoric, trend, religious, bias etc. For example when typing in veganism and identity we found an online book called Sistah Vegan by Harper A. Breeze published in 2010. This book discussing being African American and vegan in America. The author discusses her experience with veganism and the struggle with finding her identity. She discusses her culture and how that had an effect on her journey with veganism.

When we typed in veganism and politics we found a scholarly journal called “Awakening to the politics of food: Politicized diet as social identity” published in 2016. The authors Chelsea Chuck, Samantha A. Fernandes, and Lauri L. Hyers do a study on how people develop a political identity when it comes to the food they eat. The authors did a study on 36 participants each with a different diet. Each participant was asked what made them decide to commit to this particular food lifestyle. Through specific analysis the authors used the participants personal experiences, education, emotional experience and influence by others to learn more about what helped the people to decide their lifestyle.

Each time we found an article that I felt would work well with my topic Dr. Gomez emailed me the link to the source. It is convenient that the books and journals are online because then I can search specific terms or phrases and I will then be navigated to the part in the book or journal that mentions the word or phrase.

Since Dr. Gomez did not know a lot about the topic, I was discussing she had a different perspective on the topic. She was asking me questions that I would assume my blog readers would be wondering too. It was nice to have a fresh outlook on my topic and be able to brainstorm with someone. I found my meeting with a librarian to be very useful.

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Introduction:

The Purpose of My Blog:

In our society the majority of people consume meat. However, a large population of people identify as vegan. I will be going into depth on what are the struggles controversies, and judgments for people who identify as vegan. I will be researching on the controversies the vegan community face, from Italian lawmakers proposing to put parents into jail for making their child go on a vegan diet, to the challenges of being vegan and going against your culture’s norm. Before I discuss this, I want to first give a little history on veganism and where it originated from.

Brief Introduction to Veganism:

I learned from Time Magazine that World Vegan Day is on November 1st and for millions of people, this is a day of acknowledgment for people who do not eat meat. Not only do they not eat meat, but they don’t eat eggs, cheese, honey, whey(  liquid remaining after milk has been curdled and strained. It is a byproduct of the manufacture of cheese or casein and has several commercial uses) , or gelatin (a translucent, colorless, brittle, flavorless food ingredient that is derived from collagen obtained from various animal body parts). Or anything else that is made from or includes an animal. This also encompasses any clothing, objects, and accessories made from an animal. This includes leather, wool, pearls, and ivory piano keys.

Veganism is an extreme form of vegetarianism, and though the term was coined in the 20th century, the concept of not consuming animals can be traced back to ancient Indian and eastern Mediterranean societies. The Vegan Society informs us that the term veganism originated in England in 1944 by Donald Watson and six other non-dairy vegetarians, including Elsie Shrigley who was the co-founder of the vegan society.

Vegetarianism had been a topic since the 18th century but the idea of non-dairy vegetarian diets and lifestyles was still new. According to International Vegetarian Union vegetarianism was mentioned by the Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras of Samos as early as around 500 BCE. Also, many followers of  Buddhism , Hinduism, and Jainism also advocated vegetarianism, believing that humans should not impose pain on other animals.

In the early stages the meatless lifestyle was not common in the west. When it was mentioned it was viewed as a temporary health diet for weight loss. However, Time Magazine shares that by 2005 there were around 250,000 self-identifying vegans in Britain and 2 million in the U.S.

In Conclusion:

I hope that during my journey of making this blog I will be able to dig deeper into the world of veganism. My intention is to shed light on a different side of veganism. When looking at other vegan blogs I saw a pattern that the blogs were either pro-veganism or anti-veganism. My goal is to discuss the culture and ethics of veganism and see whether we as a society are accepting or prejudice of this way of living.