@Ivonne. Good question, although, yes, I guess it is off topic! Firstly, I'm not a strict vegan. I eat vegan food most of the time; at home and at restaurants with friends and family, and at other times when it's easily available (say 98% of the time). However, otherwise I revert to being a vegetarian (mainly at corporate events where veggie is easy - many Indian professionals are veggie - and I am a strict veggie, fish isn't a vegetable, if you're in the restaurant business and don't understand that get another job) because veganism hasn't always hit the mainstream yet (not outside of Hackney, Shoreditch, etc anyway; Putney is behind the times) . Well, a strict vegan won't eat, use or wear any animal products to avoid exploitation of them. As you know I'm not black and white about things so in the example you quote, I probably wouldn't have an issue with that and some vegans probably wouldn't either, others think it's easier to set "red lines" to avoiud confusion over what is or isn't vegan, and you have to do that in restaurants because some people are vegan because they have dairy intolerances or egg allergies. A major problem in the modern world is that food production is often about profit only. I went veggie after the BSE episode, not because I was concerned about getting BSE (probably too late by the time I stopped eating meat and no, Mr Game/Ms Hammond, I haven't got BSE 😺) but because I couldn't believe the meat industry was stupid enough to feed meat to ruminants or, asx latter happened, corrupt enough to reintroduce condemned meat into the food chain - that's the meat industry, not farmers who often didn't know what was being done. Similarly, honey seems harmless but commercial production often involves the killing or mistreatment of bee colonies: crazy as we need bees to survive!
Michael Ixer ● 2525d