Category: Ethics
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The threat of vegan cheese
An interesting story from The Washington Post came across my desk the other day about a vegan cheese that was a finalist in a cheese competition “A vegan cheese beat dairy in a big competition. Then the plot curdled.” The Good Food Foundation is an organization whose “Good Food Awards” recognize exceptional producers in the…
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Philosophers, social justice, and veganism
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a guest post for the blog Biopolitical Philosophy. The blog, launched in 2019 by philosophers Shelley Tremain and Melinda Hall, “provides up-to-date information and cutting-edge critical analysis of biopolitical asymmetries and other mechanisms and effects of power in philosophy and beyond.” You can read more about its mission…
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Major Catering Win: a fully plant-based catered event NOT by my request
What might seem like a little thing is actually huge. I realize I talk about catering a lot. And again I want to make it clear that the reason is not because I am grumpy when I don’t get a decent meal (even though I am indeed grumpy when I don’t get a decent meal…
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Engage or chill?
Considering I’m a philosopher who has essentially been trained to argue, you might think my answer to “when to engage?” is “whenever the opportunity arises.” But that is not my approach at all. I have limited time and energy. I do not engage when it is hopeless. And there is a certain baiting approach, where…
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What do you do with the “may contain…” allergen warning?
Anyone who has ever spent time reading ingredient labels to see if a product is vegan is aware of the frequently-seen “may contain” warning. This warning is usually associated with known allergens, and most often will list tree nuts, soy, wheat, dairy, or eggs. I confess that I have usually considered this warning to be…
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Bees: it’s not just about honey
Lots of people wonder why vegans don’t eat honey. The short answer is that it is produced through the labour of bees, which makes it an animal product and therefore not vegan. You may find some vegans who don’t worry about honey, possibly because they don’t consider insects to be animals or possibly because they…
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Killer Cute Shoes
Towards the end of his brilliant essay, “Consider the Lobster,” David Foster Wallace asks a series of questions, among them: Which brings me to the issue of leather shoes. [note that the shoes pictured above are cruelty-free, not leather] If people are open to thinking about these issues at all, they are willing to consider…
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Compassion as a reason to be vegan
I’ve said it before: one of my favourite things about starting this blog is that people send me things of interest that I might have missed. Last week someone sent me a link to Leo Babauta’s post, “Why I am Vegan (and how to make it easy),” from his Zen Habits site (thanks Daphne!). I…
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Making plant-based the default
I have had lots of opportunities to put catering under the microscope lately, and mostly it’s not been pretty. A colleague and friend elsewhere has been raving about a new menu item that’s been showing up at catered meetings in her workplace: an apparently delicious tempeh sandwich. This item deserves an A+ for being both…
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Navigating “meat-eaters’ fragility” while not losing focus
Last week I talked about what I called “meat-eaters’ fragility” as an obstacle to change. Today I want to say a bit about what to do with this fact about the world we live in. I don’t think it’s surprising that challenging the status quo in a way the involves an ethical argument gets people’s…
Vegan Practically 