Vegan Practically

I recently celebrated my birthday by spending the day at Thermea Spa Village in Whitby, Ontario. These Nordic-style spa villages are a thing now, where different temperature pools and saunas are interspersed among loungers and hammocks and wood-burning fire pits. You’re encouraged to do a “thermal cycle” of heat (sauna or hot pool), cold plunge, and rest. There are various levels of intensity. I left out the cold plunge.

They also have of course treatments, like massages and facials. And several places to eat expensive food from menus dominated by animal products. And that’s where I want to focus my attention today.

It’s really sad that a place that focuses on wellness has a menu where animal products dominate. There is hardly anything vegan in the restaurant or the lounge or the “Biergarten.”

The main restaurant, Le Resto, has a Tofu Peanut Noodle Bowl, indicated as vegan. I ordered that and the soup, which that day happened also to be a vegan ginger carrot soup. Le Resto shares a kitchen with The Lounge, so when we asked about vegan options, we were also given the option of ordering from the Lounge menu. Diane selected the Roasted Vegetable Wrap. It came with a side of your choice and she chose the soup. It was all tasty, though I burned the roof of my mouth with the first bite of peanut noodles and Diane’s “side soup” was more of a thimbleful. Neither of us had ever seen such a small portion of soup.

The rest of the “field to table” menu in Le Resto includes two kinds of chicken, a steak dish, a burger, black cod, tuna, mussels, bison meatballs, and cheese in various forms (no vegan option there). In the Lounge, people can share charcuterie, hummus and pita, and cheese boards. They also have a couple of salads, one of which is vegan. Finally, for those wishing to eat dessert, the chocolate torte is vegan. Unfortunately, I had a bad encounter with a chocolate dessert a few months ago that has made it impossible for me to order anything baked with chocolate as the main ingredient. Fortunately, we had dinner plans at Planta later that night where they have a spectacular banana pudding that is fitting for a birthday dinner.

I have a basket of criticisms of this type of curated “wellness experience,” delivered as a package to anyone who wants to pay a bit of money to lounge around all day in a robe (that they provide). It’s definitely a slick operation (as all of these types of places are, I assume, based on what I’ve heard). The industry in general is a bit woo-woo and GOOP-y. Wellness has become synonymous with spa-days as self-care. The idea that wellness is only in reach if you have money should make us all uneasy, but that appears to be the dominant cultural narrative these days. For Thermea, it also requires physical mobility. There’s lot of landscaping that would make it totally inaccessible to anyone with mobility issues. Getting from point A to point B at Thermea inevitably requires climbing or descending stairs.

There should be (and are) less expensive ways to find peace and relaxation. The relentless new-age spa music soundtrack that plays throughout the site, even outside, is impossible to escape. We tried going to “the beach” — a sandy stretch of loungers by a calming pond — for some silence, but the music piped into that area just as loudly as anywhere. If you would rather zen out to birdsong forget it. The spa playlist dominates.

They also have “rituals” that you can part-take in that the “Ritual Artisans” lead. I didn’t think I could do one in earnest so I stuck with hot pools, the steam room, and lounging.

The most tempting activity, for me, was the guided meditations on different themes throughout the day, held in a lovely pergola in the quiet area where the saunas are. I didn’t end up attending one because of timing, but I considered it. One of the guided meditations is called “Kindness.” I assume from the name that they guide people through a Metta meditation, also known as the Loving Kindness meditation.

In the Loving Kindness meditation, you hold someone in your mind and then extend to them thoughts of loving kindness. There are various scripts, but my favourite is: “May you be well, may you be happy, may you be free from suffering.” Usually you start with yourself, then build out to someone you like, then someone you find challenging, then in the end you extend it to all beings: May all beings be well, may all beings be happy, may all beings be free from suffering.

It is a beautiful meditation that always leaves me with a sense of calm. It is a wonderful thing to do with a group, where by the end there is a palpable sense of peace in the room. The meditation definitely generates a sense of connection with other beings, regardless of species. It does not express a sentiment that is at all compatible with eating animals or supporting factory farming (the source of 99% of animal products consumed in North America). The world would be a better place if everyone did the loving kindness meditation every day.

I’m sure most people just take the whole spa thing at face value and enjoy their day off. And while I of course found it relaxing and came away from the day with a sense of having had a vacation, and I recognize that it is a privilege to be able to do something like this, I had trouble getting past the incongruence of offering wellness without offering a cruelty-free menu. That in turn shifted my perspective and made me more critical of the experience more generally as I reflected back on it. I am not sure why I should expect more of the wellness industry than of anything else with respect to conscious consideration of non-human animals, but I do.