there's our catastrophe

pussy-strut:

mmouthbreather:

pussy-strut:

never smile ever because feminism

also because the vegan straight edge

NO. ONLY BECAUSE FEMINISM. men tell women to smile all the time because they feel entitled to women’s affective labor at all times. nobody cares about when vegans smile because veganism isn’t made apparent visually or inscribed bodily (save, like, self-righteous shirts that say “vegan” or whatever—looking at you, andyfreeds). also because literally nobody cares. whatever internet you’re not my mom

(via anotherhookerblog-deactivated20)

ex-vegan life is weird

it’s very like how I imagine leaving a religious community to be.  vegans absolutely do not want to talk to you about food politics or animal rights.  not that I ever really want to have those conversations, pushes too many buttons, but the avoidance is noticeable. 

I was vegan or freegan for three and a half years, I’ve been vegetarian since I was fourteen, and you feel like you have more in common with the girl on my left who’s been vegetarian for a few months and is thinking about going vegan at some point? 

it feels very similar to how people who ate animal products used to get pre-emptively aggro and defensive when I mentioned I was vegan/vegetarian, like I was questioning their choices by default and judging the shit out of them.  seems like somebody who was converted to the cause and did see the light and was committed and still found it necessary to stop being vegan brings out a similar response in vegans. 

it’s a vegan cliche that everyone talks about the bossy judgemental vegan, and is happy to boss and judge you based on that spectre.  of course it’s somewhat disingenuous; as a vegan, you’re unlikely to be judged for not being vegan, no?  but it is nonetheless true to my personal experience.   the radical folks I know are the worst offenders, actually.  my family and my other friends just accept my veganism as part of my general weirdness.  they may or may not accommodate it, but they generally don’t give me shit for it.  that would be rude.  it seems this basic courtesy has passed a lot of people by.  I get it; we’re combative, we critique.  still. 

I make a point of not telling people their food is weird or gross, or shaming them for their diet in any way.  it’s obvious that food is not just food, it’s tied up with so many other things — the body, gender, culture, religion, race, personal history, mental illness, physical needs.   the way some people bulldoze through that with “but if you just tried” is shameful.  (in any case, veganism is essentially a product boycott, and in itself unlikely to make a significant change in the way animals are treated.  a boycott is a way to make yourself feel better and maybe create some space to articulate alternatives.  it’s not a whole social movement.)

the thing is, this applies to vegans as well.  you just do not know why someone is vegan.  you cannot assume that it’s not tied up with incredibly strong emotions, trauma, oppression.  one major thing I’ve observed is that, yeah, many many vegans have or have had problems with disordered eating.   it could be a way to further punish themselves or it could be an attempt to get a sense of control in a way that doesn’t hurt.   either way, making fun of their diet is unlikely to help.  and either way, you can’t assume they don’t also have serious political or spiritual reasons for being vegan. 

please don’t make fun of other people’s diets, or call their food gross, or assume you know anything about their relationship with food.  this goes for everyone.  we can still have a serious conversation about food politics without doing this; in fact, it’s vital to that conversation being productive on any level. 

in the simplest terms: don’t yuck anyone else’s yum. 

How You Shop When You Are Poor

elfstaranymore:

I had to put this behind a cut because it’s way long for Tumblr, but I really hope you’ll read it because I think it’s a very important post.

I had to put this behind a cut because it’s way long for Tumblr, but I really hope you’ll read it because I think it’s a very important post.

I started discussing this a little bit here, but I wanted to expand on the idea of how shopping on a very tight budget works, because obviously some people have no idea. I will add the caveat that this is how shopping was done in my family, by which I mean shopping with food stamps for a family with no dietary restrictions, with access to a car, and in a rural area of the U.S. Obviously each family’s needs are different and that is why food prescriptivism - which, remember, is a form of body policing - is fucked up. The way my family generally shopped was this: First, you plan your protein. This is generally the most expensive part of your diet, and also the part which makes you feel like you have actually eaten a meal. If you begin your shopping with broccoli and orange juice and strawberries, you will not have enough meals. A person can eat nothing but chicken, and that might not be super healthy, but that person will not be undernourished or feel hungry all the time. If you eat nothing but fucking strawberries? You can’t live on that. Do not confuse “low-calorie” with “healthy”, especially if you are trying to feed growing children. Your first priority as a poor person is to get enough food to not be hungry, and proteins and yes, fats, are highly desirable for that. So the first part of your money goes toward the largest and cheapest quantity of protein you can get. This tends to be fatty food like chicken thighs, hot dogs, fatty ground beef, peanut butter, eggs, and highly processed “cheese food”.

“But what about beans?” I hear you exclaim. Beans are a good source of lean protein but they have a few problems:
1) The cheap ones are dry and need to be soaked, which takes holy shit forever
2) Beans every meal gets old fast
3) Not everyone feels sated from eating just beans (myself included)
4) This aspect may seem the most trivial, but is the worst for me: Eating beans as a meal makes you feel poor. I think this is one of those statements where everyone who has ever been poor will know exactly what I mean, and those who have not will be deeply confused. I’m glossing over it for now because it could be an entire long blog post on its own, but yeah. It’s not a nice feeling.
5) They really do give some people gas, which is actually a painful and embarrassing enough problem for some people that it negates any of the health benefits. Really.

The second part goes toward breads and starches because those are digested more quickly than proteins and thus sate your hunger quickly in the short-term, while proteins keep you feeling full longer. This is where the traditional “meat and potatoes” meal comes from. Potatoes make you feel full right now, meat keeps you from feeling hungry until your next meal. This is where it’s easy for people who have not been poor to become judgmental, because middle-class white culture has demonized these foods as non-essential “comfort foods”. But if you have limited options for what will make a meal, these are fucking vital. So once you’ve got your proteins, you then go for potatoes, rice, breads, cereals, and pastas. It is worth noting that in all instances white is cheaper than whole-grain.
Next, you get things which will allow you to put your base ingredients together as meals. This is where vegetables first start to enter the picture, particularly cheap flavor-adding vegetables such as onions and celery. But this is also where you buy butter, milk, cooking oils, salt, jelly, Hamburger Helper and Shake n Bake. Don’t underestimate the value of those! An extra dollar to turn a flavorless wad of beef into a satisfying meal is an extremely good choice, especially since you generally can’t afford a lot of herbs and spices or marinades, and since you’re working with pretty low-quality meat.

And this is where I will lose a lot of people: Fresh fruits and vegetables aren’t next. “Fun” foods are. Whatever food is fun for you: snack cakes, chips, beer, tea, coffee, soda, string cheese. My mom wasn’t happy unless she had tea and ice cream in the house. Why does this take precedence over “virtuous” foods? Because poor people get tired of being fucking virtuous all the time. Because we don’t have the expendable income that middle class people do, to buy other things which comfort us like nice furniture, nice cars, electronics, trips to do fun things, etc. I may be inviting a lot of hate by admitting this, but sometimes when you’re poor, eating for entertainment is the only entertainment you can afford. If a dollar box of Twinkies makes you feel happy when the rest of your life is no fun, that is a dollar well spent. Sometimes my mom and I would spend $20 per trip on just junk food, but that was the only $20 we spent on anything frivolous the entire week/month/whatever. And by frivolous I mean anything other than bills and gas money. Again, living without this stuff makes you feel poor. Sometimes you need to have some small luxuries to feel human, and personally, my need to feel human is more important than my need for broccoli.

But let’s talk about why produce is so far down the list. Above I said your first priority as a poor person is to buy enough food not to feel hungry. Your second priority is to buy food you will eat all of. Produce spoils quickly and is often an enormous waste of money, and you can’t afford to be spending money on food you will only throw in the trash. So when you are poor, you have to be very, very careful what vegetables you buy. My family bought mostly canned vegetables, but that can get expensive and is almost impossible if you don’t have a car and have to carry your groceries home.

I’m hoping this post has shed some light on why poor people make the food choices they do. If you are appalled by the amount of cholesterol and other negative aspects of this diet, work to fight the systems which deny access to inexpensive, healthy food to millions of people. But don’t engage in victim-blaming, food-shaming or body-policing, because that’s just adding to the problem.

yes to all of this.  I am super fucking paranoid about having protein in the house and a lot of it is because of being on a budget and having been really broke for long periods in the past. 

I will also note that most vegans I know, myself included, prefer not to eat beans for every meal — we mix it up with tofu of different textures, tempeh, quinoa, nuts and seeds, nut butters, etc.  sometimes these are cheap and sometimes expensive.  variety generally implies buying a couple of expensive protein sources every so often or spending a fair amount of time on food prep or food buying.  so I think the “beans” paragraph applies to vegans too, ok.  also in my opinion it is  unfeasible to cook dry beans at home without a pressure cooker (which will run you at least $60 for a crappy one) — they almost always get that weird tough skin, or stay crunchy in the middle.  supposedly you can avoid this if after soaking you simmer them for like six hours — good luck having six hours to yourself to stay at home and watch those beans! 

I hate dry beans, if it’s not obvious.