Hey there modern vegans and vegan curious, it's Margaret.
And today, I'm going to be doing part 1 in a series of two
parts in response to Gary Francione's recent video
"''But it's Just a Little Bit' and Dumpster Diving"
In his video, Francione talks about contamination with small amounts of animal products, and
dumpster diving.
In this, part 1 of the series, I'm going to be talking about 'contamination' with small
amounts of animal products.
Let's get to it.
Intro
So on Wednesday, January 25, Gary Francione,
famed professor of Abolitionist Veganism,
released a video discussing two different things:
Contamination with animal products and Dumpster Diving.
And today I'm talking about "contamination" with animal products.
And particularly, Francione's contention that it is non-vegan to eat potatoes that have
been fried in the same oil that has also been used to fry animal products.
In his video, Francione says that if we're to eat something like french fries that have
been fried in oil that has also touched animal products,
what is to prevent us from ordering pasta with cheese,
or another dish that has ground beef sprinkled on top.
Those are the two examples that he uses, and I want to say that yes,
it is completely different, and here's why.
When you're ordering fried potatoes, first of all,
there's a negligible amount of oil animal product within those fried potatoes.
Certainly if you had an allergy to say, fish,
you probably wouldn't want to eat those fried potatoes,
but if you're a vegan, what you don't want to do is to exploit animals.
in fact, in the Vegan Society's definition of veganism,
the idea is to avoid animal products "wherever practicable or possible".
And I do believe this is a case where it is not practicable to completely avoid animal
products.
So in 1949, the Vegan Society defined veganism as
"a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude
- as far as is possible and practicable -
all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to,
animals for food, clothing or any other purpose."
So as far as this definition is concerned,
what we as vegans are doing is trying to avoid - as
far as is practicable or possible - contributing to the
use and exploitation of animals.
Simply stated.
And I think that the case of the fried potatoes is an exception
to that, and I'm going to tell you why.
When you're eating fried potatoes, first of all, as anyone
who knows anything about frying foods, when you're frying
food, the oil is absorbed much more than it is given off.
So in order to fry chicken, that chicken, if it has breading,
is going to be absorbing much more fat than it is actually giving off.
That's just a fact of life when you're frying something.
That's just kind of the way it works.
So there is more oil being absorbed by the breading of that chicken than there is being
given off by the chicken.
But more importantly, when you purchase fried potatoes,
you are not purchasing an animal product.
You are purchasing a plant food, and that's what the money goes toward.
On the ledger of that company, it's going to say fried potatoes
-it's not going to say anything else.
They know that the recipe for those fried potatoes contains no animal products.
And you can check of course - it used to be, for example,
that with - I think it was McDonald's - they were using beef flavouring in their fries.
And of course, if they're using something like that,
then that product is not vegan, because when you're buying it,
you are contributing to the use of animals, and the reason is
because that product explicitly contains animal flavourings,
and that's something that the company knows and they keep track of.
Whereas, with just fried potatoes, if you already asked if it has got beef flavouring,
say it doesn't, it's just potatoes -
then if you're eating fried potatoes that are fried in that oil that's used for everything
else,
your dollars are going towards potatoes.
They're not going towards anything else.
The company is not getting the message "oh, we need to add more beef flavouring," or "oh,
we need to add more beef product".
None of that kind of stuff.
There's no animal products involved in this whatsoever.
It's simply the fact that it has been "tainted",
as Francione might consider it, with animal product.
and the fact that Francione compares this with eating pasta
with cheese on it, or eating a product with beef sprinkled on it-
those would both be recipes.
If you work at a kitchen,
if you have ever worked in a restaurant, or food establishment
and you're given instructions for how to prepare a food,
yes, it is important if someone orders a product that is sprinkled with cheese to know that
product was sprinkled with cheese.
If the dish said "no cheese", then that would be something that would be signalling to the
management that was not in demand.
So, yes, I do think that is important.
Obviously,
if you order pasta, you want to say "no cheese",
that's a very simple and very reasonable decision to make.
And the same with anything that might be sprinkled with ground beef,
if it comes to you with ground beef on it, you can send it back
and say "no, I don't want it with ground beef."
And that's perfectly reasonable.
But when it comes to this issue of the oil being tainted
with the fat of a chicken, it is purely about purity.
And I think that's really important.
I think that a lot of Francione's ideas are puritan.
I don't know if he himself is influenced by a puritan theology,
but he seems to present a form of veganism that is quite puritan in its nature.
The idea that we need to keep ourselves pure from animal products is concerning to me,
and I think it's even going against some of the ideas that Francione presents in his own
books.
If you were to tread the Abolitionist Approach to veganism,
his 2016 book that I reviewed recently,
he makes it very clear that we are not to support the exploitation or use of animals,
that animals are moral beings.
But what he doesn't really explain or explicate so much in that book
is the idea that we also need to avoid any possible contamination with animal products.
And that's what I think the problem is here.
I realized, thanks to many other people who've talked with me about this,
and I've discussed this with some other people,
in order to prepare for this video - but I think that
the challenge for me in this instance is that I think consequences are important.
And I think Gary Francione doesn't.
I think that he cares more about rules.
And for him, the rule,
as he states explicitly in this video,
is that vegans do not consume animal products period.
But I consider that slightly ridiculous,
because we're always using animal products.
If you've ever purchased or used anything made of plastic,
it contains animal products.
And certainly, in my opinion,
this falls into the "practicable" part of veganism.
It is not practicable or possible, in my opinion,
to be using animal-product-free plastic all the time,
because it simply doesn't exist.
If you're going to
use plastic wrap, if you're going to use waxed paper,
if you're going to eat something at a restaurant that uses waxed paper,
then you're automatically non-vegan if it's the mere
contamination with a single cell of that animal organism that
renders you non-vegan.
I think it's not just even about intent,
it has to be about consequence.
And this is my own personal philosophical viewpoint,
but I think that the idea that we can't "sully ourselves"
with animal products is problematic.
I think the notion that we can keep ourselves "pure"
from any contact with animals that have been misused
is impossible.
We live in a world that is built on animal
exploitation.
And that is a tragedy, and I think that our job as vegans is letting the world know that
we don't want to contribute to the profitability of that,
but we can't end the use of it completely without being part of the system.
It's simply impossible.
I've mentioned previously on this channel that if you walk on pavement,
you're talking advantage of animal products,
because asphalt contains animal products.
If you ride in a car that uses biofuel,
you are likely taking advantage of animals as well,
because most biofuel contains tallow, or beef fat.
And even if you were to take public transportation,
you're still getting exposed to a small amount of that.
And I think that is not dissimilar from what Francione is talking about in this video.
If you are to eat those potatoes, it's no different from riding the subway, from taking
a bus,
from doing almost anything else that we would do in our daily lives.
We're always going to be coming into contact with animal products,
until we eliminate them.
The more important question for me is "how do we eliminate them?
And I think we eliminate them by letting people know that they are not profitable.
By not contributing to profit centres.
And I suppose this is rather Utilitarian of me,
and it's simply the way my mind works,
but I think we should not be contributing to the ongoing use
of animals, and the ongoing profitability of animal use.
Eating those fries is in no way contributing to either one of those things.
If you eat french fries, you are not saying that
"we need to keep frying chicken", number one - I mean,
you're not in any way contributing to the demand for fried chicken by eating a fried
potato.
And you're not saying it's okay, either.
I think that the far more important thing is to advocate for animals in other parts
of your life, but those potatoes -
I'm sorry, Francione, but that has nothing to do with it.
And your personal purity is not the issue here.
The issue, in my view, is the suffering, use and abuse of animals.
We need to be ending that.
We need to be sending the message loudly and clearly that we do not support the use or
abuse of animals, that we don't support their exploitation -
that's what we need to be sending across.
Not the idea that it's somehow impure to eat a potato that has touched a chicken.
It reminds me more, in fact, of religious law surrounding purity from the Old Testament.
It seems to have far more to do with that than it does with anything else.
This may simply be my philosophical and ethical standpoint,
but I would really love to hear from you guys.
I want to know
what you think about this, do you eat french fries?
Or items that are cooked on a stove that is also used for animal products?
Where do you draw the line?
Because for me,
I have to draw the line at consequence, and intent
because in order to draw the line at contamination -
there's so many things that - I mean, I live in Canada.
I couldn't use our currency, I couldn't use a credit card,
which is also produced on a machine that uses tallow -
it becomes absolutely impossible.
And in my mind, that's where we absolutely need to be focusing on the consequences of
our behaviour.
Because ultimately, to me, consequence is what matters.
But I really want to know what you guys think,
I want to know if you would eat those potatoes or not,
do you think Francione is right?
Please let me know, because this is something that has been bothering me since I saw the
video.
Not bothering me because I'm concerned that he's right,
but bothering me in that, I think he is fundamentally leading
the vegan movement down the wrong path.
So I'd love to hear what you guys have to think about this.
If you liked this video, please like, share and subscribe.
And let me know down below what you think about it.
Thank you so much for watching,
and I will see you in my next video, where I'll be discussing dumpster diving.
Take care.
Bye.
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