Joe High School, who has been a vegetarian for nine years, became a vegan after the New Year. He ate power bars and drank soy milk. This lasted almost a month, until today. I believe the seed of change, so to speak, was planted by an innocent question I asked, which was whether he could eat honey on a vegan diet. I was having difficulty finding whole grain bread that didn't have honey. Even though it is an animal product, honey was apparently OK for Joe. Last week I mentioned that there are farms that raise animals humanely, and that we could probably find their products here in the land of 10,000 steakhouses.
Last night he indicated that he might be willing to consider such food -- milk, cheese and butter produced by pasture raised, grass-fed cows. Today, off we went to the food co-op. There we found cheese produced on an Iowa farm where they milk the cows by hand and pluck the thistles out of the pasture so that the beasts do not suffer if they mistake the leaves for something yummy.
This food is not cheap. In fact, it's extremely expensive. And Joe felt guilty for blackmailing us, as he put it. So he paid for 25% of the grocery bill. We now have some wonderful food for all to eat, and Joe is back in the land of the living.
I like it because it's local. I don't like it because it represents a way of eating that most people in the world cannot afford. Joe celebrated when we returned home with a slice of chocolate cake (butter, eggs, etc.) from the co-op bakery. And he's looking at chevre in a whole new way--it's hard to mistreat goats. They won't stand for it.
