Cinemorphosis

Tag: veganism

  • The Confessions of a Non-Vegan Vegan

    The Confessions of a Non-Vegan Vegan

    I am a tormented soul, and the battlefield is my plate. I never feel I’m in the right place, and by “place” I mean my eating domain—the psychic terrain between brisket and beans. I was raised on barbecued beef sandwiches, smoky hamburgers, salami hoagies, and charcuterie boards that looked like Renaissance still lifes of cured flesh. And then, over time, my conscience kicked in like a late-arriving bouncer. I began to hear the muffled cries of suffering animals—and the louder groans of my own arteries. I hated that my pleasure depended on the misery of sentient creatures. I wanted clean eating, a clean heart, moral clarity, and the faint sanctimonious glow of vegan virtue hovering above my head like a halo.

    Then I actually paid attention. Veganism, it turns out, isn’t a moral spa retreat; it’s a maze of tradeoffs. Monocrops. Soy fields bulldozing ecosystems. Mice and birds ground into casualties of industrial “compassion.” I realized that evangelizing vegan purity often slides into cultural arrogance—an Instagram-fed smugness that flattens traditions built over centuries of living close to land and climate. Who was I to wag a lentil at an Inuit and say, Have you tried chickpeas? Moral certainty curdled into embarrassment. The world, annoyingly, refused to sort itself into clean categories.

    And then there was love. My family bonds through food, and their love language is meat. Bring home burgers and barbecued chicken and I’m greeted like a returning war hero. Serve curried lentils and I’m exiled to the doghouse with a Tupperware lid for a pillow. So I live as a Non-Vegan Vegan: my heart leans plant-based, but pragmatism, domestic peace, and the gravitational pull of convenience drag me back to the carnivorous center. This is my life—philosophically compromised, nutritionally conflicted, emotionally negotiated. It’s tormented, yes, though still less tormented than the animals sacrificed for the charcuterie board my family will demolish on New Year’s Eve. That thought doesn’t save me. It just makes me chew slower.

  • Letter of a Reluctant Vegan

    Letter of a Reluctant Vegan

    Dear Family and Friends,

    My conscience has dragged me, kicking and screaming, into veganism—at least in the realm of eating. I’m not claiming sainthood. There will still be leather on my belt and my chair, but food is the resource I consume daily until I croak, so food is where the battle line is drawn.

    Frankly, it feels absurd to have to write this letter. What am I supposed to do—show up at your barbecue with a thawed hockey puck of a veggie burger and no explanation? Consider this fair warning.

    I don’t pass judgment on those who can’t afford the luxury of organic lentils, nut butters, and vegan supplements. I judge only myself. I have the means. I have no excuse.

    For my Christian in-laws, who may brand this heresy, I’ll admit: Scripture says God gave us animals for food, and Jesus Himself ate fish. But tell me—do you really see Jesus slurping down a farm-factory tilapia raised in ammonia haze, or God green-lighting slaughterhouses where conveyor belts double as hell’s architecture? I don’t.

    Yes, animals in antiquity suffered in the kill, but the industrial scale today—the torture factories, the mass indifference to pain—requires a numbness of conscience that is staggering. Hunting is one thing. Outsourcing the deed to workers inhaling ammonia until their fingernails fall off is quite another.

    I can already hear the rebuttal: “Why fret over animals when humans suffer?” To which I reply: false dilemma. I can care about both. Just as I can walk and chew gum, I can oppose sweatshops and factory farms.

    Still, I know my silence won’t protect me. Even if I never lecture, my plate of tofu will speak volumes. My very behavior will look like an indictment. Mockery is inevitable.

    And sure, I could rationalize my way back. It would be easier to eat one family meal instead of making them salmon while I steam buckwheat groats. I could shrug and say, “The animals are doomed anyway, so I might as well enjoy them.” I could hide behind biology: “I’m an omnivore; meat is natural; animal protein is more bioavailable.” But to do this would be cowardice—a lazy suppression of conscience.

    I owe my family the best version of me, not the morally diminished one. So here I stand, vegan plate in hand. The road is awkward, lonely, and a little ridiculous, but it’s the road my conscience demands.