Vegans spurning coronavirus vaccines would be taking an ideal to extremes
- Most vegans try to exist without harming animals or their habitat, but some take it too far
- These people replace leather with plastic and honey with artificial sweeteners. If they forgo Covid-19 vaccinations too, sorry but they are beyond the pale
Normally, I am very tolerant of people with different diets. If someone chooses to eat or not eat anything, that’s their decision. Your stomach, your choice. However, I am beginning to wonder if certain segments of the vegan community are becoming too extreme and radical.
My first thought was, “wow, that’s a hardcore ethical stance”. But if these ultra-pedantic vegans won’t take a vaccine because it’s not 100 per cent free from animal participation, I’ve decided they’re no different than a blindly partisan Trump follower who would rather harm their country than lose a political fight.
My understanding is vegans abstain not just from eating animal products but anything that uses and exploits animals in its production. In essence, it’s not just a diet, but a lifestyle. Naturally, there are different levels of strictness depending on how any individual chooses to express their beliefs.
In general, vaccines do not contain animal products, but they may be used in the development process. For example, early trial versions of medicine might be tested on mice and monkeys before humans.
For years, flu shots were manufactured in a process called ovalbumin, using the protein from chicken eggs to replicate, then deactivate viruses.
Sidebar note – scientists have now developed more advanced cellular methods to make vaccines that are completely vegan. I have no idea if Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca or Sinovac used purely vegan methods in their development phase.
Crocodile, ostrich … mushroom: Hermès Victoria bag to use vegan leather
But if you have to question your conscience about taking a couple of non-vegan jabs to help end a pandemic, or reject vaccination to make a grandstanding gesture about animal suffering, you’re a certifiably woke idiot.
Honestly, I don’t know how vegans keep up with the ever shifting landscape of what foods they can eat. There are things you would assume to easily fit the vegan profile but sometimes they do not.
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What do we know so far about the Covid-19 variants?
Some bananas are off the menu because their transport uses a preservative called chitosan made from crustacean shells to extend their market life. Another controversial fruit is figs.
For pollination, a female wasp has to lay its eggs inside a fruit, at which point it gets trapped, dies and is broken down by the enzymes. It might be natural and symbiotic, but do you want that poor insect’s death on your conscience?
Mass-produced avocados and almonds usually rely on commercial bee-keeping to pollinate crops. That really sucks if your standard post-yoga snack is avocado toast with a glass of almond milk. By the way, you might forget about that tribal tattoo you’re considering. Some inks are made from charred animal bones.
Such vegan restrictions really boggle me with their misguided tenet. Strict vegans cannot enjoy a baklava dessert because it contains honey, which we all know is made by oppressed, enslaved bees. It’s only OK if the sweet version of a blood diamond is replaced by less healthy artificial sweeteners or a sugary fructose syrup.
To me, the logic is as baffling as replacing real leather in your life with pleather (that’s plastic leather). You’ve paving the road to ecological hell with alternative good intentions.
I know most vegans are not this dogmatic. They’re living their life, consuming plant-based food, trying to do more good than harm where they can. In today’s world it is practically impossible to be wholly vegan.
Animals are involved in and affected by virtually all aspects of life, even agriculture if you include habitat displacement.
If a fool thinks Covid-19 vaccination is a difficult choice, pity them. By their severe guideline, you know what else is often not vegan? Beer and wine. Sometimes elements from egg whites or fish bladder are used to clarify the liquid. Oops, maybe I just turned non-vegans off alcohol too.
