How NOT to be an activist

Let's talk about how not to be an activist.

I think the vegan and animal rights community needs to have a long, hard look in the mirror and re-evaluate their approaches to advocacy, because this is not a way to create forward progress for your movement; it's only a way to alienate yourself from the rest of the world.

A small, local business in Toronto was targeted by animal rights activists this week, simply because they sell animal products. The retailer has been around for years as an e-commerce business, selling high-quality authentic, Spanish products online. The company prides themselves on only sourcing free-range meats and sustainably sourced seafood products and are gearing up to open their first storefront in Toronto. But before they could even open their doors, the store was slammed with protestors who covered up the?windows with signs of their own and occupied the surrounding sidewalk area.?

This isn't the first time that these types of activists have targeted a small business with values that are deeply rooted in ethics and sustainability. A few years ago, Antler restaurant, a game meat restaurant priding themselves on ethical hunting, went viral after their owner cut up of a deer in the front window right in front of protestors.

The cognitive dissonance in both of these cases is astounding.?

If you want to be vegan and you want to advocate for animal rights, power to you. Maybe try hitting a McDonald's or one of any other hundred retailers selling products from industrial factory farms, instead of a small business prioritizing animal welfare.

Or perhaps, just stop trying to force people to change their diets at all.?

I have a real issue with the vegan community pushing their dietary choices onto others. Food is so deeply personal and the reasons that people eat the foods that they do are complex; they involve aspects of health, nutrition, accessibility, cultural customs, and preferences. To assume that everyone has the access and desire to be vegan is woefully ignorant and goes against the very principles of what it means to be “food secure”.?

The FAO definition for food security reads: “Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”.

The reality is that most of the world doesn’t have physical and economic access to vegan foods, at all, not to mention vegan foods that meet their dietary needs and food preferences.?

If someone does not prefer to be vegan and you feed them a vegan diet, they are not food secure. Maybe they’re morally just in the holier-than-thou minds of some vegans, but they’re not food secure.?

And if we’re talking about sustainability - 8 billion people eating a vegan diet is probably one of the most unsustainable things we could do as humans.?

When human carrying capacity has been measured for vegan diets compared to omnivorous diets,?vegan diets scored lower, meaning they put more strain on the natural environment than omnivorous counterparts. In-depth?comparisons? of different kinds of foods show several seafood products?having?a lower environmental impact than certain plant-based foods.?

Removing seafood and land-based protein from the world would create hunger, malnutrition, and further deforestation, not to mention the loss of livelihoods in coastal communities and agriculture regions, and the destruction of food culture and tradition.?

We all need to have more respect for our food, where it comes from, the people who produce it, and the right to choose the foods that best for us. There’s more than one right way to support sustainability and animal welfare, acknowledging that is the first step towards actual progress.?