I am (Not) a Vegan

I want to share a quote on exactly why I have a hard time calling myself a vegan, vegetarian, raw foodist, or any other ist:

“I think that people have framed this conversation in absolutes. Either you are or you aren’t. The word vegetarian, I think, does a disservice because there are a lot of people who care but maybe don’t care, or can’t care in an ultimate way. If you think about environmentalism, nobody would ask, “Are you an environmentalist or not?” The question doesn’t make any sense. And the notion that the first time you drive in a car or fly in a plane that you should throw your hands up in the air and say, “Okay, well I give up. I’m not going to try at all anymore,” is crazy. If people thought about food more like how we think about the environment, a lot of people would be eating differently and the whole system would look a lot different.”

- Jonathan Safran Foer, from an interview about his book Eating Animals, with Kiera Butler for motherjones.com.

To see the whole interview click here, for the book, click here.

I get asked all the time if I am vegan or a vegetarian or if I never eat sugar. I have a hard time answering because I eat Green almost all of time, but just not 100% of the time.  Some people are absolutist about food which is actually admirable, but it’s not what works for me, at least not yet. And I don’t think pushing absolutism onto others is what will change the world.

I like to tell people, “Take that next step for you,” “Just lean into it,”  ”Find out where you are and where you want to go and just start.”