Going Vegan and Coming Right Back

I watch a lot of Youtube.  There’s something so soothing about watching TV where nothing happens; you just get to witness mundane details of someone’s life.  One of those details that comes up again and again is the fact that the Youtuber in question is vegan.  It’s become so common on Youtube (at least on the lifestyle channels I tend to watch) that veganism became mainstream, or even wholesome in my mind.  I’m always looking for the simplest solution to things, and eating a vegan diet began to seem like one of those simple solutions.  I tend to eat the same thing every day, so I began thinking about vegan substitutions for the animal products I eat on a daily basis.  For breakfast, I have a cherry smoothie with Greek yogurt in it (it gives me 20 grams of protein, something I need to get going in the morning).  So I thought that plant-based protein powder would be the perfect substitute for the yogurt.  For lunch, I usually eat some tuna salad on an English muffin, so I got some chickpeas and vegan mayo to make a little faux-tuna salad.  For snacks or dessert, I’ve been eating a couple cookies or a bit of chocolate, both of which have corresponding vegan options, so no problem there.  And then my usual dinner is already vegan: a tofu-vegetable soup with “Nasoya Pasta Zero” in it (these are amazingly low-calorie noodles made from tofu or mushrooms- definitely check them out). 

These changes seemed totally doable and I thought it would be a great, positive change for the environment and potentially for my health.  My main motivation was the environmental angle (apparently 1 pound of beef takes 200,000 gallons of water to produce), so I assumed avoiding all animal products could only have positive effects on the planet.  I mean, there are vast quantities of Youtube channels and blogs devoted solely to vegan recipes and lifestyles, shunning leather goods and even wool for ethical reasons.  I really felt like this was more than a trendy bandwagon, and so I was ready to jump on. 

Then I tried the protein powder.  I choked down that first smoothie, chalky, chemical taste and all.  I even justified the astronomical price for the plant-based protein powder, thinking it wasn’t that much more expensive than yogurt.  But I felt positively sick after that smoothie, which led to me pondering what effect I was really having on the environment.  I thought about how processed the protein powder was, how questionable the ingredients were, and how much fossil fuel and transportation were involved in its eventual arrival at my local Whole Foods.  Was this really better for anyone than fresh, unsweetened yogurt?  I wasn’t convinced.

Now chickpeas are a whole food, inexpensive, and unprocessed.  But that vegan mayo- that was as outrageously priced as the protein powder, and raised the same questions for me regarding any positive effect on the environment.  But here the main problem was in the significant difference in the quantity of protein my lunch now contained.  I’m just one of those people who need a nap after a starchy meal, hence the tuna sandwiches.  The change to the starchy beans was tolerable, but not great for my afternoon productivity.

Snacks were fine- definitely way more expensive, but just as tasty and sugary as their non-vegan counterparts.  And that’s all I was really looking for in snacks and desserts. 

Dinner, of course, just stayed dinner.  I truly enjoy my vegetarian meals as much as my meals that include animal products.  I actually love tofu and eat it all the time.  Overall, though, I couldn’t quite swallow (pun intended) the taste, expense, or lack of protein in the various vegan foods I tried.  It seems to me that vegan processed food is just as bad as non-vegan processed food in terms of environmental impact.  And if you go for whole plant foods instead, you really sacrifice the amount of protein in your life. 

And so I’m back to my old ways: I couldn’t stomach another smoothie, chickpea lunch, or $9 chocolate bar.  Does this make me a bad person?  I really don’t think so.  I think my efforts for the environment would be much more effective by voting in elections, supporting the Green New Deal, writing to my State Congresspeople, and participating in political activism.  A quote from a recent article in the NY Times really stuck with me: “…we live in a consumer culture that tells us we can make our political mark on the world through where we shop, what we wear, how we eat… But conscious consumption is a cop-out, a neo-liberal diversion from collective action, which is what is necessary… the effects of individual lifestyle choices are ultimately trivial compared with what politics can achieve.” 

I wish all these Youtubers with vegan, zero-waste angles could be persuaded by these words. Participating in politics is a lot less trendy than using bamboo grocery bags, but unfortunately, it is the better answer to the world’s problems. Instead of going on and on about being vegan, perhaps we could make Youtube videos about registering to vote instead?