It’s quite remarkable how little is needed to be called “anti-vegan” these days. In this second presentation that I gave at the International Animal Rights Conference in Luxemburg (Sept 2015), I give some examples of what is considered anti-vegan messages or behavior by some.

One example in question is “the non-vegan lasagne“. Imagine you are dining at some new non-vegan friends’ house. They have made lasagne for you. They went through the trouble of finding a vegan recipe, buying soymilk, soy margarine, soy meat… and cooking up something they had never tried before. It’s a bit of a risk to them and they’re a little nervous. Right before you start eating, you find out that they overlooked one thing: they used lasagne dough with eggs. What do you do?

I asked this question to the audience and was happy to see that most of the people who put their hand in the air (there seemed to be a lot of undecided ones) would choose to eat the lasagne. A smaller part believed that they could convey in a polite way that they would not have any of it.

I said I was quite sceptical that not eating the food would *not* be damaging for the idea of veganism and vegans, and thus for the animals. I think it is an illlusion to think that refusing the food in such a case will not have a negative impact.

Making this kind of exception is, I believe, the vegan thing to do, so to speak. When I do it, I feel I am true to the principle behind veganism, which is (for me) reducing harm and increasing happiness.

What I would do is tell those friends later, the next time I’m invited, if they could pay attention to this or that, because last time, you know… With some time having gone over it, pointing out their small “mistake” won’t affect them as much, I’m pretty sure.

If all this is non vegan, so be it. After the talk, several people told me I was quite brave to say all this publicly. I didn’t feel especially brave, but I thought that it was quite telling that some would think any bravery was required to say something like this. I would say: stop being afraid of others judging you as not vegan enough. Think about what you want to accomplish, and at all times, make *that* and not the definition of veganism, your bottom line.

(consistency, tho)