Vegans – the last acceptable target?

I’ve been seeing a lot of jokes and headlines lately at the expense of vegans. I keep telling myself not to be offended. After all, there are some aggressive, even militant, vegans out there that give us all a bad name. But let’s face it. That’s a lousy excuse that no one would tolerate for any other group. We’re not allowed to blame all Muslims for extremist terrorists, after all. I don’t hear Emma Watson apologizing for the militant feminists–nor should she have to. And just because a lot of vegans are quiet about it and don’t shove it down people’s throats doesn’t excuse people thinking all vegans are like the bad ones.

I know veganism runs contrary to popular culture. I know veganism makes people uncomfortable. I get it. And yes, we can be a weird bunch. But choose any other “weird” bunch and you’ll find carnivores at the center of it. So what does that tell us? Nothing at all, except that people have a tendency to be weird.

So why do we have to single out vegans? Why do we have headlines like one in the Washington Post recently: “Woman trying to prove ‘vegans can do anything’ among four dead on Mount Everest”? As I can see from reactions on Facebook, people are taking that headline as a sign that vegans are stupid enough to try stuff they shouldn’t. Clearly, however, they don’t read farther. Nor do they look beyond the obvious in the headline–wait a second, three other non-vegans also died. Does that mean that a carnivorous lifestyle makes you three times as likely to die on Everest? Of course not. But even though hundreds of people have died on Everest, we’re more than happy to assume the vegan was the stupid one.

The actual article tells a different story:

First of all, Maria Strydom was married. Her husband, also vegan, survived. Both were very experienced climbers, who far along in their goal to climb the highest peak on each of the seven continents. They had yet to tackle Everest, especially after two earthquakes in the past several years have stalled other expeditions. According to the article, “That gave the couple time to train vigorously. In the intervening years, they proved that their diet would not keep them from mountain-climbing by scaling Denali in Alaska, Mount Ararat in Turkey and Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, among others.”

The article goes on about the risks of climbing Everest:

“On Everest, death is not necessarily a sign of failure so much as one of a particularly sad inevitability. Much like many places humans have ventured in our boundless curiosity — from the ocean depths to outer space — it cannot sustain life, and it often takes it. Shrestha told the BBC that altitude sickness and fatigue, along with natural factors such as blizzards and avalanches, kill a few climbers each year. It’s a potential outcome known to its climbers and gruesomely illustrated along the way by the almost 200 bodies that have frozen on or near the peak.”

And that’s just the climbers. Sherpas also die on the mountain in high numbers. And while it’s true that as many as 4000 people have successfully climbed the mountain since 1953, a 5% death rate is not easily dismissed. One in twenty climbers will die on Everest. (Also, the “4000” statistic is the number who have made it to the summit. It doesn’t say they all made it back down safely. Nor does it talk about which side they attempted it from–there is a difference.)

It should also be noted that within the same few days two other climbers have gone missing, and as many as 30 other climbers have suffered from altitude sickness or frostbite or both. Clearly they were not experiencing ideal climbing conditions. Around 330 other climbers have made it this year. Sometimes the weather does not cooperate. And it changes very quickly up there.

In any case, what killed Strydom was not unusual:

Everest, though, proved unscalable for them. The couple reached Camp 4, the final camp, at 3,000 feet below the summit, before both suffered from altitude sickness. It caused fluid to build up in Strydom’s brain, which killed her Saturday. Gropel, alive but fighting a fluid buildup in his lungs, had to be taken down the mountain by sled, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. He was taken to a hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal.

There is nothing in the article to indicate that veganism caused or contributed to their altitude sickness. Yet people feel a need to point out–and make fun of–the fact that Strydom was vegan who hoped to prove that vegans can do anything. Wow, how stupid to try to fight stereotypes and misinformation. When a blind man scaled Everest we were all inspired–wow, look at that! He overcame difficult odds! Sure, he had no choice in his blindness, while Strydom had a choice to be vegan. But then just as Erik Weihenmayer could employ compensating factors, so could Strydom. And she had successfully climbed other difficult mountains.

What if Erik Weihenmayer had died on Everest? Would we all be clucking our tongues and shaking our heads at the stupidity of a blind man trying to do more than he should have? No, we would still have admired his courage and consoled ourselves that he died following his dream. It’s only stupid when a vegan dies, evidently. And trust me, we’re clearly aware that people are just looking for things to mock us for. The potential for negative exposure was very much on the mind of Kuntal Joisher, another vegan climber who attempted Everest in 2015:

But there was one item he could not replace with vegan-friendly material —the full-body, down-filled suit that mountaineers wear on summit day on Mount Everest. He wrote frantic Facebook messages to six companies who manufacture mountain suits. Four replied saying they do not have any plan to make a synthetic substitute. He wrote to dozens of influential vegans in the West and asked them to weigh in.

“Imagine if you summited holding a vegan flag, wearing a down-filled suit,” he said. He even thought of tearing up his synthetic sleeping bag and wearing it on summit day as a body suit. “But what if I died on Mount Everest wearing it. That would be such a bad publicity for the vegan cause,” Joisher said.

Sad, but true. Few bother to go looking for examples of vegans who excel in their various sports. They’re only interest in the failures, it seems.

Heavyweight boxing champion David Haye is a vegan, and I would love anyone to question him about his protein intake. The best female tennis player in the world, Serena Williams, is a vegan, as is her sister, Venus. Marathon runner Fiona Oakes and Ironman triathlete Brendan Brazier also abstain from meat and dairy products. There are lots more, but you get the picture.

It’s also a little bizarre how people find veganism so difficult to accept, and yet have no trouble at all if it’s for the “right” reasons:

Joisher spent a lot of time briefing the Nepalese kitchen staff who travelled with him in the expedition, and cut out cream from soup, milk from oatmeal, cheese from pasta and butter from cinnamon rolls. He got so tired of explaining the ills of factory farming to the Sherpa cooks that he just told them he had an allergy that could impede his climb. They got it immediately, he said.

It’s funny. When I tell people I’m vegan (usually because they asked, not because I volunteer the information) I’m usually subjected to a lengthy explanation (sometimes more diatribe) why they could never be vegan, and usually with a tone that implies that I’m of questionable sanity. Except I never even suggested they should try it. I only told them what I am. Clearly what I am is very threatening.

I regularly have to deal with the department admin who gets offended if I offer to bring my own food to company functions rather than not participate, and yet she complains constantly about the inconvenience of having to find other options for me and the other vegetarians in the department. I didn’t ask her to go out of her way, and I don’t expect her to. I know my diet is odd, and I’m prepared to make it easier on everyone. But no. I’m a burden. It’s tempting to, like Joisher, just tell people I’ve got a food allergy. That would make it all okay. No one would bat an eye then. But it would be lying.

To be fair, not everyone is this way. I had a good conversation with another father at our recent church campout when he noticed our cooking separately from the group. He asked sincere questions, and I tried to answer politely and non-judgmentally. He thought it was kinda cool, and we left it at that. In fact, oddly enough, considering how everyone is so convinced that religious people are bigots, I’ve found more acceptance from my local congregation than I have from pretty much any other group. They will sometimes include vegan options at potlucks and dinners, and they don’t seem to be bothered if we bring our own. I certainly don’t want to fall into the trap of only seeing and recognizing the “bad apples” out there. It’s difficult to be vegan in public, but not everyone is out to make it even harder, and quite a few try to make it easier.

Still, I have to wonder how vegans became one of the few groups left that it’s okay to pick on. Is it because so few actually know one? Is it because they equate vegans with groups like PETA, who kinda ask for it (don’t get me started on PETA–they do more harm than good)? Is it because the only time they notice vegans is when it’s one of the annoying ones? I don’t know–and I don’t know how to combat it. It seems like a catch-22. Be quiet about it and no one notices, and therefore no one realizes there are “good vegans” out there. Speak up about it and suddenly you’re one of those “bad vegans” that can’t keep quiet about it and are shoving it in everyone’s faces–even if we never say a word advocating veganism for everyone.

Chances are in even posting this, in which I decide I’ve had enough of sitting quietly and taking it, I’m going to offend and alienate people–including some that see nothing wrong with mocking me and my choices. Well, I guess that’s a risk I will take. Clearly veganism doesn’t grant infinite patience.