So, while I’m taking this holiday Monday here in Canada to keep the ball rolling for issue #7 submissions (you have sent in a pitch, right?), feel free to listen to what we had to say about YouTube cat videos, Canada, Newfoundland, Ontario, PETA (I’ll give you two guesses how this topic went), and so much more.

Red Radio Ep. 39: Shootin’ the T.O.F.U. with Ryan Patey

               ”We screwed up.”

Those three words were all a lot of us needed to move on to bigger issues, and we finally got them from VegNews yesterday. After word spread about Quarrygirl’s discovery of non-vegan stock photos throughout numerous issues of the magazine plenty of us were shocked. Of course, what came to be even more shocking, at least for me, was the lack of an appropriate response from the magazine itself.

Sure, their initial post acknowledged the issue, but there was no solution, and that was a big mistake. In the world of social media, and a mass media that is always willing to jump on the anti-vegan bandwagon, this story had plenty to run with. So, it became the hot topic for many of us (including the New York Times, CNN and NPR to name a few) as we ranted, raved, debated and discussed what it all meant. And, of course, we waited to see if VegNews would change their ways.

Well, not all of us waited. Some either put their feet firmly into the ground and defended the magazine, while others turned and walked away. Whether it was the actions of their readers, advertisers, the media or something else, VegNews finally admitted their mistake yesterday.

Personally, I’ve never bought more than an issue or two of the magazine, mainly because I don’t want to be heavily influenced by someone else’s work while creating my own. However, I do hope that the magazine can move past this whole thing and get back to promoting a vegan lifestyle in a respectable way. With their commitment to creating a vegan stock photo site (shout out to Get Sconed PDX for being the first person I know to suggest such a thing!), I think things just might get better for the magazine. Eventually.

Professionally, I believe there is enough room out there for at least two vegan magazines, and I’m happy to notice that people have found their way here for whatever reason over the past week or two. We’re working on the final touches for issue five this week, and it should be out next week, so I’m hoping people will continue to check out what we’re doing.

And rest assured, as always, there will be no non-vegan stock photos in the issue.
=p

The publishing world is a ruthless one. No one is denying that. I agree that it’s great that VegNews is able to reach an audience that may otherwise not have access to vegan materials… As one of the commentors on Quarry Girl’s recent exposé remarked, VegNews is available to people shopping at Safeway in Nebraska – T.O.F.U. Magazine and the vegan blogosphere isn’t so immediately visible. It’s great that we have a vegan-run publication that is so prevalent among mainstream media. I agree with VegNews about these things.

But you know what? That doesn’t negate what they did wrong, and their response did nothing to assuage my newfound unease with their publication. Nowhere in that letter did they even acknowledge their readers’ concern with anything but accusations. You know what they did instead of saying “we fucked up”? They accused us of being the assholes. They were “deeply saddened with the dialogues that [had] transpired over the last 12 hours.” Meaning: “we’re upset that you caught us.” Anyone can see how that is not an appropriate response here. VegNews wants you to believe that your feelings of betrayal (if you have them) are illegitimate. The thing is, they’re not, and here’s why:

1. They Photoshopped images of actual meat to look like vegan dishes. This is straight-up deceit. If it isn’t, I don’t know what is.
2. They used stock photos to illustrate recipes. Have they even tested the recipes they publish? What are they meant to look like? No wonder my quiche didn’t work as well as theirs did – mine didn’t involve any egg!
3. They tried to cover up the truth. This is the worst part. When word got out, VegNews’ first response was to try and hide what they did. If they really think that using stock images is acceptable, and , then why did they try to hide it? Why didn’t they just explain themselves right away? Answer: because they knew their readers would be upset. So, instead, they lied to us some more.

So, now we have a list of sins that VegNews simply did not account for in their (long overdue) response, and a reply that essentially tells us to STFU and praise them for everything else they do well. Sorry, but it doesn’t work that way in the grown-up world. There are three steps to repairing damaged relationships: i) take responsibility for your mistakes, ii) apologise for them, iii) try to make up for your misbehaviour. VegNews has done none of these things. At this point, their reaction has consisted entirely of “This is everybody’s fault but mine!” and “You should be grateful we even publish this magazine!” VegNews does not deserve your forgiveness because they haven’t even asked for it. And, until they do, they will not get it. At least, not from me.

VegNews is putting the MEAT into vegan issues

As someone involved in the publishing business, though not to such an extent as VegNews, I have always battled with several things involving the vegan “purity” of the magazine. The big ones would involve things like booking a tour date in a non-vegan bar, having people involved with the project who are not vegan, promoting companies that are not 100% vegan, and including articles that may not be completely relevant to veganism itself.

However, I can not say I have ever debated whether or not using stock photos of animal products was acceptable.

Furthermore, even though it is not a major issue with T.O.F.U. as of yet, I try to keep an open platform for both praise and criticism with what we do. If I was afraid of a little bit of negative writing, I wouldn’t be vegan, and I certainly would not be promoting the lifestyle with a magazine!

As a business, VegNews has a bottom line. With a large staff working on every issue, the bills have to be paid and corners will be cut. So, to some degree, I can see the trail of decisions that probably led to the use of stock photos. They’re cheap, they’re easily accessible, they’re high quality, and for the most part, the difference goes unnoticed.

Sadly, they’re not vegan.

So, am I saying people should jump from the VegNews ship? No. They have done plenty of good for the veg* community, and I think in a lot of ways that outweighs the use of these photos. What I do think we should be doing is looking for an explanation. If the concern is really about the bottom line, then perhaps VegNews can start looking to the vegan community for pictures? T.O.F.U. magazine has been lucky enough to have amazing contributors (all volunteer!) who offer their writing, photos, music and numerous other talents just to see an issue happen. Maybe VegNews should look a little further online than istockphoto for their (not so vegan) bread and butter?

Regardless of how you feel about the newest scandal in our community, you’re always welcomed to check out our little publication, and you can do so without wondering about what you’re really drooling over.

So, it seems as I’ve been busy rounding up advertisers and pestering contributors with deadlines for the new magazine a few things have happened in the vegan world that warrant poking my head out of my little cave. I’ve been meaning to post something on it, but I’ve been so unsure how to do it that the days have gone by and the blog has been silent.

Now, with the magazine coming together in a semi-auto-pilot sort of fashion, I’m going to poke the pink elephant in the room. Here goes.

A Vegan No More (voraciouseats.com)

I never followed Tasha before this post, but I’m sure I knew the name Voracious Vegan in passing. I’m assuming most, if not all, of you have already read it and thought about it yourself, so I’m not going to get into the details. However, if you have not read it, then I suggest you do.

It may come as a surprise to some, but hopefully not all, that I found quite a few things in Tasha’s post to be similar to thoughts and writings of mine in the past. Granted, I also found some similarities in her writing to Lierre Kieth and a few others who are obviously no longer anywhere near the vegan camp. So, while others have taken to threatening Tasha and those around her, trying to help her do veganism “right” or admitting their current faux vegan status (probably the most concerning part of the post for me was this revelation!), I’ve been trying to determine whether or not I could understand how she came to no longer be vegan. At this point, I have to say that I do.

Trying to do what is right

Dropping the mantle of something you have been a part of for any amount of time is always hard to do, assuming you still have some sort of connection to the beliefs and values that led you to it in the first place. However, we can all find evidence in our past that shows how fluid and dynamic our lives can be. From the moment we are able to understand right and wrong we are on a constant journey to try and figure out just what that means to how we live our lives. Some of us take the simplest route and go with what works best for us personally, while others can spend their lifetime trying to do what they feel is best for the whole world.

I feel/hope that most of us are somewhere in the middle.

Personally, I have my reasons for being vegan, but they do not trump every other concern I have in my life. Currently, I am vegan because it seems like one of the best and most conscious choices to make in my environment. My veganism is merely a part of who I am, and I question it almost everyday like so many other things I identify with.

My diet currently determines where I live

One of the reasons I question being vegan is how it determines where I place myself in the world. Although being vegan has become easier as time goes on, and it can certainly be done in more places now than ever before, I’m not convinced it could be done well around the world. Personally, this doubt comes from an experience soon after I became vegan. Several years ago I traveled to Thailand with a youth group to partake in the third annual Gross National Happiness Conference. We spent two weeks in various parts of the country meeting people and sharing in an amazing experience. It was probably one of the best times of my life, even though I had left Canada in the midst of some serious relationship issues. That being said, I came back in one of the poorest physical states I have been to date. After a diet of fruit and rice, along with some decent tofu while staying at a monastery, I returned to Canada with low iron and a few other deficiencies. However, my veganism remained intact, outside of the possibility of language barriers not quite getting across the idea that fish sauce is not a vegetarian.

Back in Canada I took it upon myself to learn more about vegan nutrition, and I believe it helped return me to something similar to what I was before I left. However, I still do not feel 100% to this day. I know I still have a lot more to learn and incorporate into my vegan diet to consider it a proper one, but this departure from my comfy North American city has kept me thinking about how I would do in other places. Please note, in no way am I saying veganism is not possible in Thailand as I know a few vegans there, and in some ways I feel it would be easier than here in North America. However, given my interest in non-profit work, I do feel there are some places in the world that I could find myself where a vegan diet could be risky to follow without some serious packing and dependency on care packages. Taking into account the impact on the environment that such actions would have, as well as my interest in supporting a local economy over a global one, my decision to be vegan comes into question over my interest in helping and living somewhere outside of my comfort zone. Just recently it was a factor in my decision to not apply for an internship with the same youth group to travel to Bhutan for nine months. Although the idea of living in a country that only recently started being inundated with Western culture was alluring to say the least, the idea of lacking an easy source for vegan supplements and food was scary. So, at times I find myself conflicted over whether or not I should risk the health issues (or my veganism altogether) for the experience of doing great work overseas or if I should just stay within the boundaries of those places I know could sustain my vegan diet as it is today. As it stands right now, I am choosing to do as much as I can from where I am, which allows me to be vegan and environmentally conscious at the same time.

One person’s “right” can be another person’s “wrong”

As I stated earlier, I do not agree 100% with the points Tasha makes, but I do think that her decision to move away from veganism has some merit. It is within this area that I feel more vegans should look. Too often people turn away from the mainstream and the “facts” it force feeds us only to be taken in whole by another ideology. If you are so unsure about what one group of people say, why are you so sure of what another group says? I believe there is a lot of value in going with what your heart and your gut tell you about something, but I also believe in putting a little bit of weight in someone else’s argument, even if it flies in the face of your own. There is a reason why they believe it to be true, and it rarely is as simple as them being “dumb”, “blind” or “evil”. We spend enough time hoping that our friends and others will be open to our belief in veganism, so should we not try to be open to other’s alternate beliefs as well?

Veganism is not perfect, but it seems like the best answer for me right now. For some people, such as Tasha, being vegan no longer fits. Whether or not we think she needed more spirulina in her diet, less pro-meat nutrition advice or that she ever existed at all is not really the point. How she got to the decision of ending over three years of veganism is her personal journey, and picking that process apart will probably be as productive as people trying to convince you that your decision to be vegan is full of issues. The key to me is that she did not get there lightly, just the same as how she did not simply become vegan on a whim.

The forest and the trees

Taking the time to consider your impact on the world, and how to ensure that impact is as minimal and positive as possible is a big step. It is one that not enough people take as far as I’m concerned. However, when looking at all the possible things to consider, everyone tends to put more weight in certain areas. For the simple fact that we are not perfect, this prioritizing of concerns leads to a lot of conflict. Although it’s a sticky concept, the need to view the person as a whole is very important. Whether or not the person is vegan is just one piece of the puzzle, and from my personal point of view it is not the biggest one.

Simply being vegan will not change the world, and I hope most people recognize this. There are so many issues in this world that require attention, and a large number of them are tangled around each other. So, whether or not someone is vegan is not a clear judgement of whether or not they deserve your attention or respect. It is certainly not the only characteristic one should use to decide whether or not someone should live, and I can think of no circumstances in which not being vegan or being post-vegan should warrant a death threat. Granted, such threats are typically from the more radical end of the spectrum, but I still feel like an underlying thread of anger runs through the members of any group when someone has “betrayed” them and gone to the other side. It is this feeling of betrayal and being attacked that I believe can overshadow one’s ability to step back and look at the person as an individual, not just a single belief.

In this together

So, as the dust settles and Tasha continues to live her life while we all do the same, what has changed? There are still millions, if not billions, of people eating life in either unknown or willful ignorance of what their choices mean to animals and the world at large. There are still wars, refugees, genocides, epidemics, floods, earthquakes and so many more atrocious acts that drastically alter the lives of thousands and sometimes millions of people within moments. There are still politicians and corporations doing deals behind closed doors that keep the rich getting richer and the poorer getting poorer. Luckily, there are still people who are trying to change all of this, and they’re not doing a bad job if you ask me. Some of them are on the same path as you, and some are walking just a little differently towards what just might be the same goal: a better world.

Hopefully we will all get there some day.

So, like anyone who pokes an elephant, I’m now going to step back and hope that I don’t die in the stampede out of the room or simply get shit on in large quantities.

Alicia Silverstone’s admission to cheating on vegan diet harmful to the cause (thisdishisvegetarian.com)

As this post says, Alicia’s actions are magnified because of her position in society. It is this position that I was trying to discuss in my post, but I guess I missed the mark.

Of course, the comments section on that post is mixed as well, and they also post another article with an alternate view:

Alicia Silverstone cheats on vegan diet with dairy as her downfall (thisdishisvegetarian.com)

So, it’s not that I’m shocked that Alicia is not perfect. The problem and concern I have is what such a senseless action as nibbling on cheese just to avoid being “icy” will have on the media who already prefer to play vegans as the preachy, staunch buzzkills. Sure, it may allow a few vegans and veg folk to relax when they slip as well, but what about all those people who will wonder if there is really any conviction to our actions if one of the more well-known vegans in the world admits to not being able to avoid eating a piece of cheese at a party?

Honestly, how hard is it to reach for the crackers instead? Sure, they may not be vegan, but claiming ignorance is a lot less dicey than simply choosing to ignore so much that you have educated people about in the past.

Alicia Silverstone Admits She ‘Cheats’ Sometimes On Vegan Diet (ecorazzi.com)

The comment section on their page is of course just a sample of the feedback this little admission is getting from folks. As a high-profile celebrity who has supported the healthier living cause, and more specifically the vegan/animal rights cause, Alicia openly admitting to trying cheese at a party seems to be the collision of two things I have touched on in the past:

CEOs and celeb vegans

and

Are vegans extinct?

“Being flexible that way makes more people comfortable. If I’m rigid about it and I’m perfect, then no one is going to be able to be like me because I’ll be this icey, rigid thing.”

Although I can agree with Alicia to some degree about the importance of being somewhat flexible about one’s stance on diet, animal rights, etc… I have to admit that I feel her celebrity status, and profiting from the vegan identity, places a little more weight on her being a “perfect” person. I know, celebrities are people too, but when those people are fighting or representing causes that are already ridiculed by the media (albeit less and less these days) their actions are all the fodder a tabloid needs to take a bite out of veganism or whatever cause they admit to cheating on every now and then.

So, what do you think? Does everyone deserve a Get Out of Jail Free card when they don the vegan cap or do they lose that privilege once they step out in front of a camera and publicize what’s on their plate?