(no subject)

[nozomi604]

Ethical eating in Tokyo wasn't too difficult this time around. There's a learning curve, to be sure, when you're used to eating things like bread or potato chips. Even seemingly safe foods like inari zushi and ume onigiri can have animal products added; I made sure to avoid anything that had "amino" listed in katakana in the ingredients. So I'm pretty sure I avoided eating anything animal-derived.

I did eat white sugar a few times. Futaba Fruits Parlor, in Shinjuku, will veganize anything on their dessert menu; that's the sort of thing I want to encourage! But I don't know if the sugar they use in their otherwise-vegan treats is refined with bone char or not. I also had a sip of someone's alcohol, which may or may not have been processed vegan. I'm going to claim plausible deniability there.

Otherwise, many of my consumer habits carried over to Japan. I avoid conventional bananas, both because of the industry's treatment of workers and because they can use a preservative spray made from the shells of marine animals. And I don't buy coconuts or coconut water* from Asia, because of the systematic abuse of coconut-picking monkeys in that part of the world.

(Correction: young coconut water doesn't seem to be an issue, actually)

Before I came to Japan, I decided that I was going to relax my restriction on almonds, as well as a few fruits. Last time, I practically lived off of Morinaga Macrobio bars (which contain oats, wheat, almonds); this trip a little less so, but there were still times when they were the only wholesome vegan option around. They're also sweetened with only beet sugar (tensai satou).

I had a good talk with a cafe owner about what it meant to be vegan in Japan; how it was represented in the media, what advocacy was like, and what challenges were unique to the country. It was nice to get an insider's perspective from someone who spoke English well and could explain a few things. One issue he brought up is that there aren't many fortified foods in Japan; I already take B12 (500mg, cyanocobalamin) and vitamins are easy enough to access, but it's worth keeping in mind.

Another thing we talked about was the tension between health vegans and animal-rights vegans. While being against fad or overly-restrictive diets, I think that the health aspect of veganism is inseparable from animal rights. Not just because healthy vegans are a good public image, but because otherwise sympathetic people will have health concerns about going vegan, often from industry propaganda that makes its way into schools and mass media. Also, there are a lot of outdated views, often based on animal studies, about nutrition in the medical establishment; I think those views have to be adressed and debunked, much as scientific racism has to be debunked. How we view food and nutrition is influenced by cultural speciesism/zoomisia.

One of the biggest problems right now is the interest in high-fat diets, keto, and particularly fish bodies as a source of "good fats". In the airport, I saw an NYT headline about low-fat diets protecting against breast cancer; hopefully, that's the beginning of the end for the keto fad. Also, increased rates of prostate cancer have been shown in men taking DHA. DHA and omega-3s are very big in Japan and the States right now; it's an example of how pop-cultural memes affect people's idea of health. And it's used as justification for killing fish. But I can hope that the self-interest of people with breasts/prostates will tip humanity towards not eating our oceans.

The elephant in the room for this irresponsible heiress is air travel. Phasing out fossil fuels in jet planes is a huge priority; until that happens, arguments that we shouldn't be flying at all have some weight to them. However, if I chose not to travel, that's not one less plane in the air. Instead, that's one less person asking for vegan meals on that plane, and one less vegan traveller in general. And I think it's important to maximize our positive influence.

Does checking food for trace ingredients have a positive influence? Well, here's what I would argue. Vegans are, in many ways, a despised minority. We don't have the right to transparent labeling of animal ingredients. We don't have the right to animal-free vaccines, or medicines free of animal testing. We don't have the right to our foods in public institutions, like most hospitals or schools; in France, the law is so carnist that children can't legally be vegan.

So I think it's important to assert the right to live vegan, because people don't fully have it yet, and it can be taken away.

At the same time, veganism is a political movement, and a political movement is made up of resilient individuals. Accepting, taking on, some level of inconvenience shows that I view my cause as important. It also shows respect for individual animals; not in some abstract sense of karmic purity, but in the sense that that was someone. That's what goes through my mind when I'm reading labels.

When thinking about ethics, I don't want to only consider the big picture. I want to use different lenses and levels of magnification, so I don't miss an important detail.

Comments

[nozomi604]

Guide to staying vegan in Japan: https://isitveganjapan.com/
Video citing DHA study: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8_kTtWUnf8

[darkoshi]

I'd noticed, based on the occasional Japanese food products available in the grocery stores and World Market here, that most of their snack foods and candies contain milk. At least the ones imported here. I hadn't really thought about how difficult it could be as a vegan traveler over there.