vegan freak BeingVeganinaNon-VeganWorld VERSION 2.0: REVISED, EXPANDED, AND UPDATED vegan freak BeingVeganinaNon-VeganWorld VERSION 2.0: REVISED, EXPANDED, AND UPDATED Bob Torres, PhD Jenna Torres, PhD DISCLAIMER: Though this book has been thoroughly researched, the opinions herein are offered for educational and entertainment purposes only. Before any change in diet, readers should consult a physician or nutritionist. Although the authors and publisher have made every effort to ensure the accuracy and completeness of information contained in this book, we assume no responsibility for errors, inaccuracies, omissions, or any inconsistency herein. Vegan Freak: Being Vegan in a Non-Vegan World, 2nd Edition © Bob Torres and Jenna Torres 2010 This edition © PM Press 2010 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be transmitted by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. ISBN: 978-1-60486-015-3 Library of Congress Control Number: 2008934203 Cover design by John Yates Interior design by Ida Fong 10987654321 PM Press PO Box 23912 Oakland, CA 94623 www.pmpress.org Printed in the USA on recycled paper. To Mole, Emmy, Michi, Taco, and Spike, who remind us every day why we’re vegan. To our parents, who have always been there for us. acknowledgements THE SUPPORT OF MANY PEOPLE HAVE HELPED US TO MAKE THIS BOOK WHAT IT IS: Thanks to Ramsey and everyone else at PM Press for being incredibly patient with us and our delays, and for helping us to get this book to print. Thanks to Romy Ruukel for her deft copy editing, and to John Yates for the brilliant new cover. Thanks also go to Alli Dunlap for all her help with the manuscript and with Tofu Hound Press, and to Ida Fong for her wonderful design work and for putting up with our forever changing production schedule. (Don’t worry: we love you too, Mr. Fong.) We owe abundant thanks to the many of you who sent us feedback on the first edition of Vegan Freak, all our freakies on the forums, and all our devoted podcast listeners. Thanks for all the words of encouragement, the great voicemails and emails (both hilarious and thought-provoking), and for helping us to create a community of vegans where people don’t feel so alone. Gary Francione and Anna Charlton have been working tirelessly for years to promote nonviolent vegan education while simultaneously developing what we believe to be the only sensible articulation of the moral and ethical necessity of granting animals personhood. Their years of writing, teaching, and speaking on these issues have created a sensible, non- violent movement for the abolition of animal exploitation where none previously existed, and their ideas have utterly transformed the ways that we approach our own work. As if redefining an entire field of study weren’t enough, Gary and Anna are also extraordinarily generous with their time, energy, and advice, and we count them among our very best friends. As in the first edition of the book, our cat Michi once again helped during production by sitting on Jenna’s keyboard and blocking her monitor, while the new kittens Taco and Spike also got into the game by typing, trying to chew on our copies of the first edition of Vegan Freak, running off with all of our pens and pencils, darting around the house like crazy, and being distractingly cute. Our dogs Mole and Emmy watched over our offices and kept us company as we wrote, barked like crazy at anyone who dared come close to the elite fortress, and made sure we got out for a walk every day. We also can’t forget Ida and Richard and Hy and Ceile for being great people and awesome friends. Hy and Ceile, we miss you and thank you for being there for us through thick and thin. Ida and Richard, we always know we can count on you to go out for awesome vegan food, talk about crazy shit and to commiserate about all manner of things. You all have always been kind, supportive, and understanding, and we thank you profusely. Bob also wishes to thank Dr. Don Haupt for his support. Don: I know you think this veganism stuff is insane, but at least we agree on stand-up comedians, so all is not lost. Jenna wants to thank Doug Nelson and Scott Meadows for being incredibly accommodating about her veganism and for even offering to go to a vegan restaurant for dinner! And finally, thanks to our parents — Bob, Debbie, Keith, and Sandy — and to Zach and Carly for always being so enthusi- astic about our book, for being supportive and putting up with all our weirdness, and for always making us awesome vegan food. table of contents PREFACE i 1. VEGAN AND FREAKY 1 Vej-uns, VAYguns, and Vegans Oh My 5 What Veganism Is 9 Why Not Vegetarianism? 14 Just Go Vegan Already 19 The Cold Tofu Approach 24 What Veganism Isn’t 41 Impoverished Veganism and the Need for Social Change 61 Embrace Your Vegan Freakdom 67 2. BOB AND JENNA SOLVE THE NORTH KOREA PROBLEM 71 Simon the Sadist 78 Expanding Equal Consideration 87 The Importance of Consistency 90 Veganism is Living Your Activism 96 Forget the Organizations: Empower Yourself 97 Enviro-veganism 100 Fuck the Body Politics Already 102 3. HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE 107 The Mind of a Meat Eater 110 General Advice for Dealing with People 115 Family(or,AmIReallyRelatedtoThesePeople?) 122 What Happens When Your Partner Isn’t Vegan 129 AQuickNoteAboutRaisingYourChildrenVegan 132 Why Am I Friends With These People Again? 133 Does Someone Have a Case of the Mondays? 137 Dealing with Vegetarians and Ex-Vegans 143 Embracing Being Vegan and Freaky 149 4. WHAT DO VEGANS EAT ANYWAY? 153 Abundance, Not Deprivation 154 So What’s for Dinner? 156 Being a Healthy Vegan 162 Surviving the Grocery Store 169 Eating Out 175 On the Road Again 185 Don’t Be Grumpy 189 5. IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT FOOD 193 But What Do I Do With the Old Leather? 195 Pleather is Punk 197 Vegan Cosmetics, Toiletries, and Cleaning Supplies 201 Medications 205 Don’t Read This Section If You’re Under 18 206 6. GO VEGAN, STAY VEGAN 213 INDEX 219 preface to version 2.0 BACK IN THE EARLY SPRING OF 2005 when we began floating the idea of writing the first edition of Vegan Freak, some prominent folks in the animal rights movement did their best to dissuade us. "Other books already do this," they said, or, "The movement doesn't need a book like this right now," or, "Why not devote your energy to something else?" Being the ever-stubborn anti-authoritarians that we are, we ignored the doomsayers and forged ahead anyway. We figured that if we felt like there was a hole in the existing offerings, other people must feel as we did, and so, with little fanfare, the first version of Vegan Freak was published in 2005. At the time, we figured we'd meet real success if we could find a thousand like-minded souls to buy a copy. We've long since surpassed our initial expectations — and, as it turns out, the naysayers were wrong, too. Vegan Freak did strike a chord with many of you, and slowly, we've grown the idea from the book into a community of people from around the world who embrace veganism in their everyday lives. Linked together through forums and an online radio show at veganfreakradio.com, the community that grew out of the humble set of ideas from the first edition of this book has organized meet-ups all throughout the world, joined together for activism, and generally worked to support what is the first i VEGANFREAK and most essential aspect of animal rights activism: going vegan. The community, the show, and the book have collec- tively helped thousands of people to go vegan and stay vegan, and, by any measure, that is the most important thing to have grown out of this effort. We hope to keep that momentum going through the second edition, too, and to help to build something even larger and more powerful: a vegan social movement that seeks to abolish the exploitation and com- modification of animals. Since writing the first edition of this book, our ideas and perspectives have matured a bit. Looking back, there's a lot that we're proud of, but there's also a great deal more that we think we could do more effectively, not only to produce a better book, but to get more people to go vegan and stay vegan. This fully revised (and mostly rewritten book) sets out to rectify some of those original holes in our approach, while retaining at least some of the generally irreverent and personal character of the first version of Vegan Freak. Normally, in the publishing industry, doing a second edition requires about 20 percent of the book to be rewritten. When we were approached by the fine folks at PM Press to do our second edition, we told them 20 percent wouldn't be enough for us to feel like we’d done work we could stand behind. To make the book feel fresh, to adjust it to our current think- ing, and to give you the best possible bang for your buck (or pound, or yen, or whatever) we decided that we'd do an almost complete rewrite. What you're holding in your hands presently is the result of that rewrite. We hope you will enjoy the book, read it with an open mind, and think carefully about the ideas that we put forth.