more good news for a new vegan
as a cyclist, i was long ago hooked on chocolate PowerBars. checking the ingredients of a PowerBar was just another disappointment in my 1-wk shock treatment in march, listing the stuff i’d likely never eat again after switching to veganism. i figured no other energy bars would come close to vegan (whey and other milk products seeming almost universal), so i just wrote it off as gone. but i showed up early for my bicycle race/ride this week, and was walking through a grocery store looking for something to eat as bonk prevention. being bored, i picked up a clif bar and looked at the ingredients. couldn’t see any animal products! cool. still, i figured there must be something i missed, so i bought it assuming i’d research it later and find i’d eaten animal products anyway.
nope. except for the possibility of trace animal products because the processing machines are used to make other stuff — something of no concern to the rational vegan — clif bars are vegan. nice.
Q: Are there any animal products in CLIF BARS?
A: No, there are no ingredients derived from animals.
my dietary world continues to expand. nice offset after interacting with moron restaurant people who don’t understand what i mean when i say “i avoid animal products”. today, i looked at a huge menu with probably over 100 items. not seeing anything vegan, i finally asked — something i generally avoid. the guy pointed out two dishes, each of which had animal products (e.g., mayo, cheese). i explained that i avoid all animal products, such as mayo. i then asked about the cucumber sauce for one of the dishes, figuring i could tell them to hold the feta cheese from the wrap. “what’s in it?”
no answer, so i resorted to the worst of all queries, the leading question:
“does it have animal products in it?”
“no, but it comes on the side anyway.”
that’s a regular and frustrating response from those unfamiliar with veganism. i still haven’t found a quick way to explain that my concern is not what i eat, but what’s used, whether thrown away or put directly on a sandwich. so i tried with this:
“well, my concern isn’t strictly the eating of animal products; i don’t want them wasted. so that wouldn’t help.”
he couldn’t have cared less.
i ordered it anyway, figuring a cucumber sauce might be free of animal products.
duh. of course when the sandwich came out, the “cucumber sauce” was basically sour cream with scarce cucumber pieces. i ate it, and i will not return. yeah, i know vegans are a pain in the ass, but is it so difficult a concept for newbies?
sitting there eating, i wonder if non-vegans have even the slightest idea how addicted they are to animal products. they’re in almost every food — a truth i never came close to recognizing until i decided to make the switch and then ran headlong into just what a world such a decision excluded. some restaurants you’re lucky to find even one side item without animal products. try it sometime; a great example is outback restaurant, one of the first i went to after switching. i walked out, kinda depressed.
animal respect is catching on though. i was freaked out to overhear two of the cyclists i rode with the other night discussing veggie burgers. faded back and asked the guy, “you don’t eat meat?”
“no, i’m a vegetarian.”
“cool! i just went vegan on march 1st.”
after that, the three of us had a 5-minute conversation about animal cruelty, something that would’ve seemed borderline insanity even 10 years ago. one of the guys was an omnivore, but he at least eats only free range eggs and milk. we all readily agreed that the most humane meat eater practice is hunting with clean kills. yes, we even talked about the bugs we were killing by riding down the road at speeds between 15 and 40 MPH, which is related to the “vegans kill more animals (bugs and rodents) than anyone” argument i address in a pending article.