meansoybean

I visited with some acquaintances yesterday, an elderly professor and her daughter, both of whom I had not seen in over a decade. Due to the social distance involved, I did not want to make a fuss about my veganism in advance. But after a half-hour of ‘catching up’ in the sitting room, it was time to move to the dinner table; and time for that dreaded moment where I would be forced to admit to my nutritional perversion.

Being in polite company, the hosts took in the news without flinching. The usual queries followed thereupon (no butter, huh? ..and no eggs, either?), and I did my best to respond simply and without pretension. Past interactions of this nature have taught me to tread carefully when explaining my dietary choices to avowed carnivores. I have encountered a whole spectrum of reactions, ranging from veiled hostility to bitter defensiveness.

This time around was a new one, though: after some fashionable references to nutritional fads in the news, one of the hosts asked me point blank whether I would feed my babies a vegan diet, too.

Now, bear in mind that although I’m a svelte, virile, heterosexual in a committed relationship, I don’t have any babies — as of yet — and no plans to acquire said babies in any imaginable term.

But there was no time for such considerations, as the question was merely rhetorical, a lead-in for the real query: had I heard about “those two people who starved their baby in Florida”?

I had indeed heard something about a case like this, but lacking the relevant details, and not wanting to upset my hosts further, decided to plead ignorance and broached a new subject to dislodge the uncomfortable silence. Noblesse oblige — I had expected this sort of unpleasantness from the outset and somehow managed to repress my rage at the time — but today the incident bothers me.

* * *

It turns out there’s been a whole “vegan baby-killer” meme going around over the past few years. The media were quite pleased to blow the stories way out of proportion, and the blogospheric echo chamber strove to keep up, so many references abound.

Now, granted, a small percentage of any constituency is bound to fuck up in life, and vegan parents are surely no exception. The two cases that appear to have been at the source of the meme are muddled at best, and I wouldn’t comment on them anyway without further research. Much has been spewed about the subject already.

I’ve gotten accustomed to being questioned in detail about my lifestyle almost every time I meet someone new (unless they’re cool, which is a rare occurrence). But with this kind of b.s. clearly making its imprint on the average person, I can only imagine how difficult it must be for the majority-responsible vegan parents out there, especially as health-related reasoning is partly what led me to veganism in the first place (ultimate sustainability being numero uno on this Norwegian’s grand list of priorities).

Well, until next time — stay angry.