Hello
,
I keep going to and fro from veggie to vegan. Today, I am veggie. I bought some non-vegan cheeses and other bits at the grocery store, but I’d like to go back to vegan again. What should I do with them? Would it be unethical to use them up?
I’m surprised this sort of situation isn’t brought up more online. I hear about what to do with non-vegan clothing (etc), but not so much what to do with pre-bought non-vegan food after one decides to go vegan. Why is this not brought up more?
Please help.
Hi Rory17,
Throw out the cheese. Normally, I would advise a new vegan to eat what's in the fridge, because, as Lou pointed out, the damage is done when you purchase animal products. But you are not a new vegan. You are also not a vegetarian who is transitioning to veganism. You are a struggling vegan, who, like all human beings, is imperfect and has made a mistake.
By throwing out the cheese, you will accomplish two things:
1. You will teach yourself that purchasing cheese is a waste of money; and
2. You will avoid destroying your vegan taste buds and re-addicting yourself to cheese.
In the future, if you happen to buy cheese again, as soon as you start feeling guilt about it, throw it in the trash. Pause for a moment to feel the guilt and to contemplate what it is trying to teach you. Then, let the guilt go, and move on with your life, reassuring yourself that you are in control and are choosing to live your life according to your principles.
The reason you keep going back to eating cheese is that you are caught in a cycle of guilt. Here is how I believe the cycle works: first, you have a weak moment and buy cheese; then, you feel guilty and decide to go back to being a perfect vegan; then, after a while, you resent all the guilt and buy cheese again. You need to break this cycle.
Guilt is a useful emotion, in that it tells us we have done something that is inconsistent with our principles. But when you dwell on it and beat yourself up, guilt stops being useful and becomes counterproductive. This is why, as many vegan leaders have pointed out, shaming non-vegans is not an effective way to make them vegan. Just as we cannot shame other people into veganism, we cannot shame ourselves into being better vegans. We can only resolve to do our best at any given time.
Please don't beat yourself up any longer. You are a vegan because you are doing your best to live your life in such a way as to cause the least harm to animals. You are, however, human, and sometimes you make mistakes. No one is ever going to admit it on a vegan forum, but anyone who has been vegan for a while has made a few mistakes. The right thing to do is to learn from those mistakes so that we can avoid repeating them. Veganism is not about being perfect and superhuman; it's about the animals. It's about our behavior, not about our identity.
Good luck, and take care!
