What is veg(etari)anism all about? What is its ultimate objective? In my nine years of rabbit diet, I went through most forms of militant activism and dietary excesses so I feel quite qualified to make an analysis of psychological dynamics behind this highly popular movement.
No matter what drive brought a person to veg(etari)anism - pity for the animals, urge to save the planet or a health craze - the ultimate reward for limiting your choice of food is the holier-than-thou kick, the po-faced right to feel purer, more advanced, more environment-friendly and aware than the unenlightened masses. You, who take the rescue of this planet so more seriously than others, are so closer to rupture, your karma is so lighter, you are just about to break the cycle of rebirth and join the divine ranks of higher beings. Even if you don't aim that high, your are still healthier and so many years farther from an unsightly demise from obesity, heart disease and cancer than the "walking steak cemeteries" around you. There is even a name for this state of diet-based moral superiority, orthorexia.
"Kitchen spirituality" makes you spend inordinate amounts of time and effort searching for eco-food, macrobiotic TV dinners or locally produced food. No wonder this popular neurotic lifestyle gets huge high-fives from the food-processing industry and supermarket chains. Just when you thought the market could not expand any more, you can charge three times the regular price for "bio"-carrots or pesticide-free potatoes. What a godsend!
If you think about it, there is not much to feel superior about chewing veggie burgers made from genetically modified soya grown by underpaid Third World labour on land formerly occupied by rainforests but in most cases analysis does not go that far. It is all about the immediate kick of being different, exclusive and progressive. There are very few quicker ways of bloating your ego than adopting an extreme diet with a strong ideological base.
There are even gradations of initiation, a sort of a pecking order inside the cult. People who have not give up fish are called pesco-vegetarians and occupy the lowest rungs of the hierarchy. The less animal products you consume, the more moral authority you are allowed to assume. You need to quit eggs to get a promotion, letting go of dairy products gets you to the highest echelons of veganism. But it starts getting tricky here: if you do not eat, animal-derived things it is only logical you do not use anything animal-derived. It turns out evil capitalist industry manages to booby-trap about every single product on the market just to spite vegans: there is even gelatine (made from animal bones) in computer cables.
As if it were not enough, there are still ways to push the limits of sanctimony and dietary exclusivity. There are heated discussions whether eating honey is ethical: those who think it is not naturally stand taller than those who do. Go raw - meaning, no cooked food, just like our ape ancestors supposedly did. You can also develop compassion for trees and become a fruitarian. I am not making this up: as eating the whole plant of lettuce is equal to killing the poor creature, you are only allowed to eat fruit. True fruitarians wait until the fruit falls down so as to not hurt the tree. Once again, I am not making this up - I have personally met people whose life was guided by such rules.
If you thought you cannot get better than that, you are wrong. The ultimate role models for a seriously advanced diet-fascist are mythical or anecdotal (whichever you prefer) breatharians. There is not a single documented case of anyone who managed to survive on a diet of breath but every now and then there crop up people who buy into this New Age gobbledygook. All of them are either self-promoting crooks or dead now. That is weher you are suppoed to end up if you push your veg(etari)an agenda long and hard enough. Self-destruction or a life of lies in midst of media attention. How very dignified.
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