Hey GQ, there’s no such thing as a weekend vegan

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The headline “Why you should follow a vegan diet” definitely tricked me. What I was sure would be some nutritionally sound information about incorporating animal free foods in to one’s diet became another blatant hijacking of the word “vegan” in place of the word “not-eating-like-shit-all-the-time.”

A fitness correspondent for GQ magazine decided to use the term “weekend vegan” to describe how he enjoys dipping in and out of different rule books for eating, a rebel who won’t eat based on what the man tells him (unless the man tells him eating vegan all the time is too tough, evidently). Thing is, he actually only eats vegan one weekend of each month, but maybe “once monthly on a weekend vegan” or “vegan approximately 6.6% of the time” wasn’t catchy enough for his editor.

This writer starts by accurately describing veganism as more than just what we choose not to eat, succinctly including food, clothing, and sports as places that vegans have to look out for animal exploitation to avoid. He doesn’t actually say whether or not he experiences soy protein fuelled fits of protest against SeaWorld and leather once a month, but imagine if soy protein had that effect on people.

As soon as he throws the rule books away, and launches in to a short diatribe about how to successfully lose weight, we know he doesn’t actually understand honest veganism at all. Blah blah blah, calorie counting, carb loading, and the obesity epidemic. In one mouthful he describes how he chooses vegan food for his health and peak performance, and in the next, he’s happy not to make those a priority the other 28 or 29 days of the month because he hates piecharts.

Perhaps the most irritating part is when he celebrates how veganism embodies the practice of mindful eating, all the while never mentioning a living being from start to finish. Look, bud, deciding to load up on pasta before a race, or celebrating that you don’t have to count calories when you have a load of celery isn’t veganism. You hinted at it before, and it is only the absolute cast off from participating in animal exploitation, and that’s a Monday-Friday, 24/7, you’re in or you’re out thing. There’s a reason diets are often set to 21 days, a bodyweight percentage, or a match; they’re about what humans can withstand. Only veganism pays attention to what animals withstand, that is the utterly unfathomable practices of animal husbandry whether or not the final product tickles your tastebuds.

I’ll disagree with you, and contest there’s lots inherently wrong with being a “part-time” vegan, but not those two days where you do join us in a great lentil dahl dinner. It’s the other part, where you reintegrate the use of animals in to your day to day proudly that’s wrong. Believing in justice and living this way isn’t about being bound by rules and regulations, it’s about freeing other beings from the rules and regulations that have unjustly been forced upon them.

There’s no such thing as a weekend vegan, and eating plant-based once and a while doesn’t merit the title. Please, GQ, we don’t need to add another ripoff to the “chegan” or “veggan” bunch.

You can go vegan, for good, today.