The vegan sacrifice
Going vegan is a sacrifice. These days, it’s a much easier sacrifice to make, but it is one nonetheless. When you say you’re going to abstain from patronizing a violent industry that’s ingrained into our culture, you’re going to have to give up some things.
Maybe it’s the quick trip to McDonald’s or carving a turkey on Thanksgiving or leather jackets.
Maybe it’s the way your relatives might look at you; you’re sacrificing normalcy.
That might be the biggest sacrifice of all: fitting in with the status quo. Fitting in is a powerful force. When one is made to feel like they don’t belong to a group, it’s painful. It’s often the first thing talked about when suicides or school shootings are in the headlines.
Old school vegans like me tend to roll our eyes when new vegans or vegan-curious people express fear about giving this or that thing up… especially cheese, but it’s not fair to belittle that experience just because there are readily available and perfectly fine alternatives these days.
“Back in my day, all we had was the farmers market and mulch.”
It’s useful to think about why we are making this sacrifice.
Luckily every religion talks about sacrifice, and in the west, we have the Jesus story.
Why does Jesus make the ultimate sacrifice? Why, to save the the world.
I don’t practice religion these days, and I don’t believe in the invisible world. But the teachings of Christ are useful in life. And they resonate with me regarding veganism and compassion.
Because while he preached intentional poverty, humility, deference, love, charity and stewardship, his greatest lesson was one of sacrifice.
There are plenty of sites and scholars who pore over the bible finding evidence of vegetarian leanings, and those things are fun to argue about. But that’s not what I want to talk about. You can google that stuff on your own if you want to go down the rabbit hole of Christianity. Beware, it takes years to pick apart religion, which is why it’s rife with cherry-pickers.
When it comes to sacrifice, we expect a result, maybe something in return. So let’s ask a couple questions:
How many thousands of gallons of fresh water conserved would it take to say it was worth the small sacrifice of leaving animals off your plate?
How many metric tons of carbon never produced would make it worth it?
What about the starving children who could eat grain or drink clean water; how many would it take to give up the convenience of your favorite fast-food chain?
Maybe your own health is more of an issue:
Which cancer would doctors have to say you wouldn’t have to worry about, which ailment could you forgo if you only gave up animal products?
Perhaps vanity:
How many pounds of fat must you be promised to lose?
How much more energy throughout the day would you expect to gain?
How much of your youthful appearance would you have to maintain?
OR maybe it’s just plain old suffering:
How much suffering could you prevent or mitigate?
If you decided to stop consuming creatures who suffer, how much suffering would you expect to eliminate in order to make that decision?
That’s where the lesson of Christ comes in handy. He was promised only one thing for his sacrifice: humanity would have a chance mollify its own suffering on earth and to avoid it in the afterlife—NO GUARANTEES.
And though there were doubts along the way, Christ weighed his life against the potential suffering of the world and deemed it a small sacrifice to make.
I feel like I’m giving a sermon about Jesus now.
And it feels stupid talking about sacrifice when at the moment we have sizeable numbers of folks unwilling to get a little shot to get the world back to normal.
It’s easy to become disheartened when we see how unwilling people are to do their part even when that part is whittled away to a mere gesture.
Compared to the sacrifices Americans made during the second world war or even during the seventies oil crisis, getting a little shot seems like small potatoes. But going vegan to save the planet and stop a bunch of suffering and feel healthier seems like small potatoes too.
And I find solace that it isn’t everyone who’s balking at making small sacrifices for the greater good. And I find even more solace in that it doesn’t take everyone to make a difference. We only need more people. The more we get on board, the better off everything will be.
Just like with human rights, we don’t need everyone to agree that there are rights you get just for being human. We just need most people to think that way.
Even the story of Christ tells us that this isn’t an all or nothing game. He gave his life for the slim chance to save some.
