Veganism is a practice that’s always intrigued me. I’ve experimented with different diets, going vegetarian or pescatarian for periods at a time, but I’ve haven’t so far been able to devote myself wholeheartedly. Veganism has a very different approach, a more radical approach. I’ve watched passionately-devoted vegans from afar for years it seems, but I wonder what they have figured out that I don’t. This movement toward living and eating more consciously and sustainably has been picking up speed in the past few years, and I’m intrigued by the ideology of the practice. Why is any of this necessary? Of course, I want to feel like I’m doing something positive for the world where I can-- especially when it seems like the state of the environment is becoming more devastating every day. In moving to Tallahassee this past year, I’ve come across the local Vegan community in a number of different ways. It seems like I’m surrounded by impassioned young people wherever I go, both in the real world and on the internet. I’ve decided to look into this community, asking “what makes someone go vegan?” and “what does this town have to offer its vegan community?” I want to learn more about how this community lives and thrives, what drives them in their practice, and how I can get in on this movement.
Veganism has a “long history”, mainly in the context of “traditional religious practice” and philosophy (Frey) dating back to the biblical old testament and Greek antiquity. This was something I didn’t necessarily find out when I was first introduced to the community, but the concept of Veganism has been around for quite a while. Truly, the American veganism movement began to gain attention in the late 1960’s, when the American Vegan Society was founded. The day of its’ founding, February 8, is a nationally celebrated day in the American vegan community. The ideologies surrounding the movement in the present day almost parallel the ideologies of the ancient practice. Frey says that “contemporary motivations for veganism” can be separated into two categories: “health-orientated” vegans and “ethical” vegans. In most cases, I’ve come into contact with the latter. Typically, the people I meet pursuing Veganism want to practice a “non-violent” and “anti-cruelty” lifestyle, out of compassion for the animals involved in American consumerism. For good reason, too. The controversies surrounding animal testing, animal agriculture, and the meat industry have flared up in the past decade, and people are angry with the conditions that animals have been forced to suffer through for so many years. Documentaries surrounding the food industry have exposed the cruelty that is so often practiced; I hear about “Food Inc.” all the time it seems, and I’ve heard a considerable number of stories about how someone’s experience watching that documentary made them go vegan, or at least vegetarian. Exposure to the truth of how food makes it to the table is horrifying and gross. I had a similar experience with the 2017 Netflix production, “Okja.” Though not a documentary, this fiction film reveals a lot of the horrible truths behind meat farming, and the cruel practices involved. To briefly summarize the film, the genetically-modified “super pig” named Okja is stolen away from the small family that raised it to become the sort-of posterchild and prized meat of a scheming corporation. Okja’s caretaker, a little girl named Mija, goes after her beloved pig and infiltrates the corrupt system in order to get her precious Okja back. Along the way, Mija sees a glimpse into the heartbreaking reality of the treatment of the creatures, shoved into cages with no room to move around. It follows the process as they are prepared to be slaughtered, their bodies processed and packaged away in little bits, and consumed by a population who is ignorant of the truth. After watching this film, I couldn’t eat meat for a month. I think that was the film’s purpose, really. It was shocking and heartbreaking enough to make me take a step back and look at what I took responsibility for when I ate meat, and how I supported the meat industry in that way. It made me feel shame and guilt at how ignorant I was of the situation and the conditions that animals are put through, and it made me want to change. Here I am, years later, still thinking I should start doing something differently—and I know I’m not the only one. I would call this an example of a common text in this community. It subtly (or not so subtly) pushes you to consider the whole situation, a situation that you can easily look the other way and choose not to interact with. The purpose was to kind of inform, but mostly confront the viewer with the situation at hand. Not only do we see this in these films, but the Vegan community loves to exploit similar gruesome content all over social media in order to guilt the viewer into feeling something, so that they may possibly do something about it. Not all Vegans are this confrontational, but this community is notorious for using this method of conversion.
I sought out a local Vegan to talk to about his experience in the Tallahassee vegan community. Trace Rudolph, a friend of mine, is an FSU graduate with long luscious locks that he wears in a bun, beaten up Birkenstocks, and a flourishing herb garden and compost heap. Trace takes a lot of pride in his identity as a Vegan, so I took some time to talk with him about what exactly made a veganism necessary for him, how he’s managed his lifestyle in Tallahassee, and what makes him feel inspired to continue. When I asked Trace what first influenced him to become Vegan, he told me that one day, while working at a summer camp in North Carolina, he had an epiphany. “… One of my friends at the time was Vegan, and I was drinking a banana custard shake from Sonic, it really wasn’t that good, but I was still drinking it,” he began. “[My friend] told me something pretty disgusting… that 15% of milk is blood, puss, or skin,” he made a face as he said this. “I later found out that this fact isn’t true,” he laughed, “but yeah, that was the first time I thought to myself, oh, I should go Vegan.” He told me that after this experience, that very summer, he jumped into the Vegan world wholeheartedly. “Tallahassee is kind of cool because there's so many college students here,” He says that he’s always liked the “hippy side” of things in town. “The whole art district and Gaines street-- there's like three Vegan restaurants that serve all Vegan menus. SolVeg, The Bark, and Sweet Pea Cafe. Those are pretty fun. And there's a bunch of, um, there's like five, uh, what's it called? Farmer's markets. So yeah, it’s really not hard to be Vegan here.” Trace has one of the most laidback and “free-spirited” facades of any person I’ve come across, and I wasn’t expecting his reasoning for sticking to the practice: “I suppose a lot of the reason why I’m Vegan is because I have a bit of an eating disorder… I tend to gorge on stuff and stress eat.” He told me that eating Vegan makes him feel like he’s doing better for himself and taking care of his body, not putting “nasty stuff” in his body where he doesn’t have to. “But I always idolized the free spirit type… so that’s something I wanted to be a part of. I really resonate with the ethical aspect of it too.” Trace gave me some wisdom in helping me realize that choosing to pursue veganism can be a very personal choice, with a variety of reasons for doing so. I shouldn’t define any person based on the stereotypes of the community they are a part of. Trace advised any aspiring vegan to just “listen to what your body needs” and be patient with yourself along the way.
Moving to Tallahassee has given me quite a few new experiences with Veganism. There are so many opportunities to go out and learn about the community here. Not only are there farmers markets every Saturday and a few local vegan cafes as Trace mentioned, but I’ve also heard of a number of festivals put on by the local community. A few weeks ago I was able to tag along with some fellow Tallahassee locals to one of these festivals. I got to make my first trip to the annual North Florida “VegFest”, and it was quite the experience. I don’t know what I expected, but I was overwhelmed by the amount of excited Florida and Georgia locals who came out to this event. Lines and lines of people greeted me as I walked into Tallahassee’s Tom Brown Park, all waiting to get their hands on a (compostable) plate of jackfruit vegan barbeque or to purchase a specialty brew of local kombucha. Small businesses and farms drove hours to get to the festival, selling their fresh organic produce, specialty vegan beauty products, and handmade jewelry at the busy venue. Rows of eco-friendly vendors surrounded the park on all sides. It was easy to tell the kind of people the event was aimed at, as I walked by blissful people laying out on mandala-printed picnic blankets with their dogs for company, and watched the older man playing the sitar smile pleasantly at the passersby. Very “hippyish” as my dad might call them. I saw a lot of people who were passionate about the lifestyle they were promoting, passionate for change, or at least people hopping on the bandwagon of this growing movement. On the event’s webpage I found that it was put on by “TalVeg”, the Tallahassee Vegetarian Community, a group which “seeks to promote the benefits of a healthy, sustainable and compassionate lifestyle.” The group expressed that they expected at least “3,000 attendees” for the fifth annual VegFest, and I would say that they probably doubled that.
I saw a lot more people of my parents’ generation than I expected when I attended. I’m used to the young millennial vegans that advertise themselves and their lifestyle relentlessly on their Instagram feeds or local baristas that stick up their nose when I ask for “regular” milk in my latte. Instead, I got an old man holding a pig on a leash handing out flyers to the “Hare Krishna Love Feast,” where there’s a “free sumptuous vegetarian feast” only two blocks from campus every Sunday at 4 PM, along with a Bhagavad Gita class where one could “discover the secrets” of “the soul” and “inner bliss” and the meaning of existence, essentially. He was a cheery man in secondhand clothes, and he seemed grateful that I took the flyer from him. I got more of a sense that his intention was to attract people who felt like they need a place to belong, people who need a community to be a part of. The people I encountered at VegFest seemed to really care, and to me, that’s what I feel a lot of the rising interest in vegan lifestyle is about (or at least what I think it should be about). People want to be a part of something bigger than themselves and want something to care about. It’s more about the community that you find yourself belonging to, and about that sense of having something more in life because of that purpose or sense of belonging. It’s getting easier and easier to feel helpless in the world we live in, but I think the movement towards “compassionate” living, as TalVeg put it, is an attempt to combat the hopelessness with something we are individually, and communally, able to control.
Tallahassee, overall, is a good place to be a Vegan. The community here is strong, and there are quite a few opportunities for those pursuing the lifestyle here. The slew of passionate young people in this town have brought the wave of veganism and compassionate-living forward; it can be seen in all over, from the local veggie businesses and events of Tallahassee to the masses of passionate vegan individuals. The larger Vegan community is becoming more and more vocal for the change they want to see happen in the world. What I’ve come to in conclusion is that veganism is truly a movement for change, here and everywhere. Whether that change be the downfall of animal cruelty and animal agriculture, environmental-sustainability, more personal, health-related reasons, as I came across in my research, or anything in between. The people I’ve met in my experience with Veganism have all been very determined to tell me why it is they choose it for themselves, to a point where their enthusiasm is exhausting. I admire their passion for what they do, and if anything I aspire to be one of those irritatingly-passionate Vegans one day.
Works Cited
Frey, Rebecca J. "Veganism." The Gale Encyclopedia of Nutrition and Food Labels, edited by Gale, 1st edition, 2017. Credo Reference, https://login.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/galegnafl/veganism/0?institutionId=2057.
"GARDEN PARTY." American Vegan Society. <https://americanvegan.org/>.
“North Florida VegFest.” North Florida VegFest, www.northfloridavegfest.com/.