GARY STEEL: VEG FRIENDLY
Famous vegetarians Beyoncé and Miley Cyrus go vegan Veganism is so on-trend at the moment that I worry for the movement. After all, anything that’s trendy has some soul-searching to do down the line. Whatever’s hot right now - just like MC Hammer’s balloon pants were in the early 1990s - risks scorn, derision and being the butt of mean-spirited jokes down the line. But really, there’s no reason those of a plant-eating bent shouldn’t bask in the glory of celebrity endorsement that the recent ‘coming out’ of mega-divas Beyoncé and Miley Cyrus has bestowed on the life choice. There’s the rub, though: is it a life choice, or a passing fad for these celebrated billionaires, and are they doing it for the right reasons? I’m suspicious, because in the early 1990s, the ultimate material girl Madonna espoused the benefits of her vegetarian lifestyle, and I see now that her flirtation with an animal-free diet was rather brief. My suspicion is that those two superstars are doing it mainly for the documented health benefits of veganism, rather than having any real concern for animal welfare. Of course, both are genuine reasons for eschewing meat from the diet, as are environmental concerns, but at the heart of a decision to stop eating animals there really needs to be some compassion for the lives of those animals, not just a self-centered dietary decision.
Above: Beyoncé; Middle: Miley Cyrus; Below: Paul and Linda McCartney and family
It turns out that Beyoncé’s veganism is all around a diet plan that she’s promoting, and she even wears fur, while in interviews, Miley Cyrus does express compassion for animals. But ultimately, normalising vegetarianism and veganism has to be a good thing, and it probably makes the transition to a plant-based diet just that much easier if your idol subscribes to the same regime as you do. While the list of vegetarians through the ages is impressive, when I was first turning my nose up at meat in the 1970s, contemporary celebrity role models were few and far between. I was friendly with a Seventh Day Adventist boy at school, but he was pale and sickly and his religion forbade him having any contact with me outside school hours. The (un)popular view of vegetarianism back then was that of the Sanitarium health food shops, with its shelves groaning under the weight of cans of nutmeat. Sanitarium was, of course, a business venture of the Seventh Day Adventist church. The only celebrity vegetarians I can picture from that era were Paul and Linda McCartney, but when I was transitioning to vegetarianism, the music scene was all about punk rock, and Paul McCartney was releasing records like ‘Mull Of Kintyre’. And as we know, both sugar and aspartame kill. Later, Linda started her own range of frozen vegetarian food, but proved a poor advertisement for vegetarianism by dying of cancer. Luckily, I had great characters from history to help me defend my life choice. This spectacular role call includes Gandhi (and, of course, half of India), Buddha (possibly apocryphal), Pythagoras, Plato, Leonardo Da Vinci, Mary Shelley, Leo Tolstoy, Franz Kafka, Albert Einstein and George Bernard Shaw. And no, the list doesn’t include Hitler, whose occasional dalliance with vegetarianism was on his doctor’s advice to counter “the runs”. The contemporary vegan/vegetarian roll call, on the other hand, includes popular culture icons like Ariana Grande, Ashley Judd, Bryan Adams, Chrissie Hynde, Christie Brinkley, Ellen DeGeneres, Forest Whitaker, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mos Def, Pamela Anderson, Samuel L. Jackson, RZA, Shania Twain, Sia, Prince and um... Ricky Martin. It just goes on and on. Then of course there’s director James Cameron (Aliens, Titanic, Avatar) whose whole family are vegan. In some ways, it’s Cameron I respect the most, for putting his money where his mouth is: purchasing a dairy farm in the Wairarapa, and turning it into a horticultural enterprise, complete with vegan cafe. (GARY STEEL) F PN Do you run a cafe or restaurant in the Ponsonby/Grey Lynn area that does vegetarian really well? If so, let me know on the email below. We’ll be sure to check out your eatery. And don’t be shy, okay? Gary Steel is an Auckland-based journalist who runs online vegetarian resource www.doctorfeelgood.co.nz He can be contacted via beautmusic@gmail.com
58 PONSONBY NEWS+ July 2015
PUBLISHED FIRST FRIDAY EACH MONTH (except January)