2024-10-09
This is entry 7 of 100 for #100DaysToOffload.
I've been a vegan (more or less) for some thirteen or fourteen years now, most of my life. I spent my precious youth memorising lists of E numbers and whether they were vegan (so I could know for instance that E120 in Skittles made it non-vegan, E904 in sweets and E910 in bread (sometimes) are non-vegan, so on and so on). In terms of preparing my own food, I have no difficulty at all with preparing healthy vegan meals, really just as a factor of experience. Over time I've changed my viewpoint, to the extent that I am willing to eat eggs if they are from a good farm (definitely not shopbought) and our own eggs when we used to keep chickens, and I'm now considering eating snails and maybe molluscs. Even still, when it comes to food elsewhere, I would still eat completely vegan as I do not know the origin of the food.
And...
I'm going to Italy next week, and I'm searching around for restaurants that have vegan options. In the UK, this is nowadays pretty easy: just about everywhere has something, at least, and especially in London. It is one of the reasons I am happy for veganism becoming popular: I get to eat more food! Yet in Italy, I feel it is less developed in that way, and the diet is more traditional (which is good!) and has more meat, cheese, egg, etc.
The problem is, this means I will struggle to eat. I could of course ask for vegan versions (and I imagine 'una pizza senza mozzarella, per favore' will come up a lot) but a lot of meals just don't work in that way, or it's difficult to do. Honestly, it feels like a hindrance to me. It's *less* enjoyable than just being able to go to a place, sit at a restaurant and just always have something nice to be able to eat, without all this thought.
Now, I guess it is what I signed up for. I know why I am not eating these products: there is a suffering behind them that is hidden from me as an end consumer (because 'abbatoir' and 'a bit peckish' don't go together) which is what I am avoiding. Now, if I get served meat or cheese accidentally I can eat it, because the foodstuff is not the issue, it is the system behind it. I know this. But of course, going to a restaurant and having nothing to eat or maybe just one thing out of dozens is... aggravating. It makes *me* feel like the problem, and wicks away my enjoyment that I can't suspend my morals just for even one week, and be free to eat whatever.
I feel there is a similar situation with other matters, too, such as not using a normal phone. Since my phone has a custom ROM, I do not have mobile data etc. I cannot do the modern app-based things. It works for my use case, but for instance when we went on holiday we went to rent e-bikes. I couldn't do it, even after a bit of trying. In the end, I had to sit on the back of one whilst my friend rode it, which was pretty risky and terrifying...
It almost seemed like I was the problem, being the only one who couldn't do it. Which, sure, I guess I opted into, again, but I do wish in a way I could give up on it all and just be... normal. Even if normal comes at a cost I don't want to pay. Just for once, I'd like to take the path of least resistance.
And yet, I know I shouldn't.