More on what it means to be a "lazy" vegan

When it comes to being a “lazy” vegan, I’m not just talking about cooking. Certainly, I love being a “lazy” vegan in part because I can have a positive impact on a lot of things without even trying. I love the positive impact it has on the environment (without my even trying), love that it’s a cheap, nutritious, and simple way to eat so that it doesn’t strain my budget (again, without my even trying), but it’s not just that. I’m also talking about being “lazy,” or more appropriately, laid back, really, about my vegan lifestyle. In other words, I don’t necessarily think everyone should be a vegan.

“What’s that?” you say. Yep, I don’t. See, just like I think I need to be a vegan to be my healthiest, I think some people need just a little meat. I do think we eat too much of it (in America, at least), and we could do ourselves, the environment, and the animals themselves a big favor if we ate less of it. We also need to change our commercial meat production practices in a major way, to make them much more humane to the animals and to the environment (it couldn’t hurt the nutritional content of the meat, either, if the animals aren’t stressed out and shot up with antibiotics, among other things). But dispense with it entirely? Nope.

The other thing is, I’m not completely vegan in my lifestyle, and I’m willing to bet that most vegans aren’t. If you’re vegan, you’re probably scrupulous about your own diet. Maybe you also shun leather, honey, etc. But if you’re an animal lover and have a cat especially, you probably use at least some meat in Fluffy’s diet, be it through commercial food or by cooking your own, which means you’re an “indirect” consumer of the meat industry. I give a little of both kinds of food to my girls. The only way to make cats non-carnivores is by artificial means, and I just don’t think that’s healthy. (Dogs are omnivores and can be healthy with a carefully constructed vegetarian diet, although it’s not natural to them to do so.)

So if you’re a vegan and want to lecture your meat-eating neighbor on the evils of meat, take a deep breath and think about it for a minute before you do. If your beloved kitty can chow down on the Fancy Feast you provided (or on homemade food lovingly prepared by you), then in my opinion your neighbor has a right to his own meat-based “chow,” too.