Jake Yapp
In a week or so it will be the fifth birthday of my son, Spike. (Yes, that’s his real name, and we haven’t yet worked out if it’s short for Spichael, Spicycle, or Spicrophone). If you’ve raised children as vegan, you’ll know about the ups, “OMG he loves basil tofu!” and the downs, “We gave him a cheese sandwich and a chocolate biscuit, hope that’s ok?”
It’s a funny thing. People would often ask us, “So, erm, you’re bringing him up vegan?” in a no-that’s-totallycool voice, which implies it’s really not cool at all, as far as they’re concerned. It betrays so much about what the ‘conventional’ omnivore diet is really about. People question it because, in their view, it’s not normal. I often give them a friendly reassurance that he is on a vegan diet but that once a month we force him to drink cow’s blood, to get him a little closer to their lifestyle.
Lately, I’ve started trying to offer up a different analogy. I ask, “If you moved to Yulin, China, would you want your kid to eat dog meat? After all, you don’t want them to be the ‘weird one’ in the playground, would you?”