A Whine About Vegans…As Promised

As I’m sure everyone knows, Veganism is an extreme form of vegetarianism, although not the most extreme. That would be Fruitarianism. Those people only eat things that don’t kill the plant they came from. I want to ask, what about a plant like spinach, which is an annual? It’s going to die anyway, so why can’t you eat it? Some won’t eat seeds, because they are future baby plants.
But as usual, I digress. Vegans don’t eat meat, but they also don’t eat things produced by animals, like eggs, honey, and milk. The rationale is that this leads to exploitation of the animals. I fail to see how eating honey exploits honeybees, since it’s something they’re going to do anyway. Bears do it, why can’t I?
Eggs and milk are a different story. If you’ve read anything at all about factory farming, you know that chickens and cows are forced into very unnatural conditions and lead miserable lives from our perspective.
Especially cows. Cows don’t produce milk unless they’ve had a calf, so what happens is, the calves are removed from the cow immediately after birth. They’re fed a milk substitute, and soon killed for veal, or destroyed right away if there is a surplus of calves.
So what is an animal lover to do?
Here’s what I say: Humans did not start out as omnivores, but we are now. It’s like the folk tale of the scorpion and the frog. The scorpion asks the frog to take him across a river, because he can’t swim. The frog is reluctant. The scorpion tells the frog he won’t sting him, because if he does it will doom them both. Halfway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, and the frog cries “Why?!” The scorpion says it was because he can’t help himself. He’s a scorpion, it’s in his nature.
It’s useless to feel guilty for being the creature you are. We are scorpions. And nobody ever castigates lions for eating antelope.