So what is a Virtually Vegan? What kind of person could they be? What kind of things might they be interested in and believe in? Well, perhaps it would be best to first try and briefly define what it means to be Virtually Vegan, as we can understand it perhaps might not be the easiest concept to grasp.
What Even is Virtually Vegan?
Put simply, being Virtually Vegan means attempting to eat in line with your morals. Industrialised meat and dairy causes multiple incontrovertible harms, and it’s our belief that most people are inherently good, and therefore if they ate according to their morals - ignoring or disparaging the various external and internal influences - much less of it would be consumed.
Vegetarianism can be a step in the right direction, but once you take a good look at dairy, for example, you realise that perhaps eating some meats might be more preferable. Bear with us. An average dairy cow will naturally live to 20-25 years. In the industrial process, it is artificially impregnated to produce a calf that on birth is usually immediately removed from the mother so the milk can be taken for sale. The cows unsurprisingly don’t much like this, and express that fact quite clearly. As soon as the calf is removed, the process starts again. Cows aren’t evolved to produce this many calves or that much milk that quickly, so after an average of 5 years they become economically unviable and are dispatched to cow heaven.
Consider that scenario against eating a free-range chicken (a real one, not simply labelled as such) that is reared in a relatively natural environment, allowed to go about its business, until one day it’s not. It’s then rather unclear that milk, vegetarian though it may be, represents the moral high ground. Dairy loses on the environmental impact too. To us, it’s about understanding impact, not potentially misguided emotion.
What’s the difference between Virtually Vegan and Flexitarianism? In Our Proposition, we called flexitarianism, “just a dinner party statement camouflaging likely very little change”. Might be a bit harsh, but our feeling is that it’s a label without a clearly defined anchor; we’ve never really sensed a clear “why” for flexitarianism. Virtually Vegan hopefully communicates a clear reason behind the cause: it’s a logical stance in response to scientific data and the truths of industrialised animal farming towards eating closer to your morals. Some flexitarians could indeed be virtually vegans. But without an anchor, an underpinning belief system, the best intentions are less likely to be transformed into impactful action.
Respecters of Nature and Wildlife
Moving onto who are Virtually Vegans. We’re trail runners, sailors, surfers and scuba divers. We’re mountain bikers, skiers, paddle boarders and hikers. Amateur fishermen, mountaineers and kayakers. We love to get out and about in the great outdoors and a future of majority urbanisation surrounded by a degraded landscape of industrialised farming doesn’t greatly appeal. We recognise and embrace our part in avoiding that unattractive future. Gives us a bit of a rosy glow knowing we’re doing the right thing 3 times a day.
We’re animal lovers. But not just cats and dogs; we respect all nature and its place in the world, and recognise its importance in the whole symbiotic show that is Earth. Well, perhaps not mosquitos so much, we could take or leave those. And not only megafauna featured in Attenborough shows, but also the less ‘impressive’ species, just trying to get through the day, that are being lost in every developed nation, in a large part due to invasive farming. We recognise humans as the apex species on the planet, but we don’t subscribe to the thinking that that means that everything else is here to be utilised as we please. We’d say we need to set a better example, but no other animal on Earth currently seems to need guidance. Aside from the mosquitos.
We’re Scientists
We’re scientists. Not all of us regularly don lab coats admittedly, but we believe in science, and just as importantly, we’re prepared to act on it. The overwhelming scientific consensus is that we should consume less meat and dairy, not only from a planetary perspective, but for the benefit of our own health. This is not, like whether it’s a good time to raise interest rates or whether solar tops wind, a subjective matter; it’s a cast-iron, bet-your-house-on-it fact. We’re wondering what everyone else is waiting for.
We’re not Militant Vegans (obviously)
We’re not anti-vegan either, we say hats off to them for going all in and achieving the maximum possible in reducing dietary impact. But to us it doesn’t seem that hoping for a significant percentage of the population to go vegan is the best solution to the problems presented. Far better for the majority to be Virtually Vegan than a tiny minority to be totally vegan. And in our experience, the closer you get to actual veganism, the harder it becomes, but each percentage point closer is only worth the same as the very first in real-world impact. So we say, get the basics down, try and cut out or radically reduce the worst offending products, and then you can decide if you want to take it further if you are so inspired.
We’re not Anti-Capitalist
We don’t have a better model to suggest, but neither do we trust companies to necessarily do good. We don’t discount the possibility of capitalism being a force for good, likely more in privately-held companies, but we’re more ‘buyer beware’ than ‘accept at face value’ types. The number one drive of any publicly listed company has always been to return value to shareholders, i.e. to turn a profit, and the environment for a long time was considered an externality and effectively ignored.
Even today, it’s extremely common for environmental considerations not to be factored into pricing. Given this background, it seems recklessly lazy to just let corporations do their thing without any consumer oversight. Are you a meat and dairy consumer? Well, that means you then. It’s up to us to take the widely available data and use it wisely in our purchasing decisions.
We recognise marketing for what it is; we question everything and believe nothing. We’re immune to advertising featuring farming as wholesome and natural, and resistant to worthless food assurance statements. We claim autonomy in our food choices.
Government Smotherment
We respect government even less than we trust companies. It’s government that’s supposed to keep the private sector under control and adhering to rules and principles for the good of mankind and the planet. They are failing dismally across all main party hues. Whether it’s, under pressure from lobbying, providing tax breaks for harmful industries, woefully underfunding disruptive technologies that promise to positively shake up the status quo, or just good old-fashioned inefficiency and incompetence, government only seems to excel against one metric – disappointment.
Taking (a small) One for the Team
We’re not selfish, we’re prepared to make relatively minor sacrifices for the greater good. Globally, almost one in ten people go to bed hungry every night and they’d bite your hand off at the opportunity of a daily nutritious virtually vegan meal. Imagine how, “yeah, but bacon…” must sound to them.
Oat milk doesn’t taste quite normal to you? Maybe do as your grandparents would have, suck it up and get on with it, and you’ll probably find you’ll get used to it. Plant-based mince isn’t exactly the same as beef mince? Awwwwww poor you, the horror, the horror! We refuse to act like precious little princes and princesses. We keep things in perspective. We are “hel ved” as the Norwegians say, or “solid wood”, meaning we are people with integrity, honesty and with strong moral principles.
We’re Individualists
We recognize society’s impact in defining roles, opinions and habits and we’re prepared to rise up and challenge them, or perhaps ignore them would be more apt, where needed. ‘Rebels’ would be a descriptor too far, but neither are we happy to just toe the line and follow the status quo on the path of least resistance. We observe, we analyse, we act.
We’re Everyone
While there’s probably a particular demographic in which we might be more highly represented, Virtually Vegans are from all walks of life, all religions, professions and educational backgrounds. We’re everyone. And that’s because the core of Virtually Vegan is firmly footed in what’s good for our own health as well as that of the world around us. In anticipation of a period of unprecedented growth, we’re recruiting. Care to join?
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