A vegan revolution in Israel: fact or fiction?

You may have heard that in the last few years, Israel has gone through a “vegan revolution”, or that it is the most vegan country in the world. I recently was in Israel to give a CEVA vegan advocacy training in Tel Aviv, together with Melanie Joy, whose book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows just came out in Hebrew. My girlfriend and I spent four days in Tel Aviv, three days in Jerusalem, and three days in the occupied territories, and so I had the chance to check things out for myself. Is the vegan situation in Israel indeed remarkable? And if so, why exactly is that?

Answering questions like these is never easy: it is hard to get all the relevant data together and interpret it correctly. But in this case, there are some confounding factors which make the task even more complex. First of all, in assessing whether there’s something exceptional going on in Israel, our personal agenda or bias may be playing a role. For some people, Israel seems to be proof that rather confrontational, in-your-face tactics work, and so they use the case of Israel to argue for a clear, undiluted go-vegan message. Personally, I am – at this point in time – more in favor of slightly toned down messages (including reducetarian ones), which are equally about health and sustainability. So, when looking at Israel, I need to be aware of my own biases in that sense.
Secondly, there is the Palestinian elephant in the room. Many people, mainly on the left, take serious issue with Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians (I’ll come back to this later), which may color their assessment of how Israel is doing in the vegan department. Some even suggest that Israel is polishing up its image with a dose of vegan-friendliness (“veganwashing”). The situation in Israel seems to be an interesting case study for a discussion about the interconnectedness of oppressions, which is coming more and more to the fore in the animal rights/vegan movement in general.

With these caveats in mind, let’s take a look at what we can find.

What’s happening?
Some tidbits of information: Israel is the only country in the world where the international pizza delivery chain Domino’s (active in over eighty countries) has a vegan offering. It’s also the first country outside of the US where the vegan flavors of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream are available. The Israeli army takes care of its vegan soldiers, offering, among other things, non-leather boots. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed his support for Meatless Mondays and said he is very sympathetic to the idea of animal rights. The 2014 Vegan Fest drew over 10,000 visitors. Happy Cow shows us 20 vegan listings (restaurants, bars, etc.) and 16 vegetarian ones in the city center of Tel Aviv (within a 5 km radius, and in a population of 410,000 people). Travel agencies offer vegan culinary tours of Tel Aviv, and a vegan group tour of Israel.

Israel is the first country where the Domino’s pizza chain has a vegan offering.

Walking around in Tel Aviv, my own superficial assessment was that it is indeed very vegan friendly, on a par with the most vegan-friendly cities in the US, like New York or San Francisco, or Berlin. Tel Aviv is the most progressive part of Israel, while Jerusalem, the country’s biggest city, is much more conservative and doesn’t seem to be quite as impressive in the vegan department. Veganism especially being concentrated in the most progressive cities is of course not a phenomenon unique to Israel.

Very impressive in Israel is also the activist movement itself. The growth of this movement seems to be a very recent thing. When I talked to people about what triggered it, the name Gary Yourofsky, mainly known from his “Best Speech You Will Ever Hear” video, kept popping up. Yourofsky – who recently pulled out of activism due to burnout – visited Israel in 2012 and seemed to have galvanized the movement by his talks and many interviews in mainstream media. The Hebrew subtitled version of his video was watched over 700,000 times. Yourofsky is heavily criticized by many people for statements about women, Palestine, and a general misanthropic attitude, but his influence in Israel especially seems hard to deny. Time and again, I heard of prominent and less prominent activists having gone vegan because of Yourofsky.

Apart from him, other influential people I heard mentioned frequently are Tal Gilboa, a vegan activist who won the popular Big Brother show on national TV; Ori Shavit, a food journalist, blogger and activist; and TV celebrity Miki Haimovich, who leads the Meatless Monday campaign in Israel.

So today, the movement in the Holy Land is clearly flourishing. You may have heard about the animal rights march in October 2015, in which no less than 12,000 people participated. The organizers aim to attract three times as many people in the next march, come September – it would make it the biggest animal rights march ever. I had a meeting with people from Anonymous for Animals at their headquarters in Tel Aviv, and was very impressed by the professionalism and results orientation of their relatively young staff (which is 30 people strong!). Equally impressive is the work of the organization Vegan Friendly, led by Omri Paz, which is responsible for the vegan friendly label for businesses, organizes many events, and does lots of other things. The more mainstream organization Let the Animals Live has in recent years introduced vegan campaigns.

The 2015 Animal Rights March in Tel Aviv

Other initiatives are the very successful Facebook page Best Video You Will Ever See, which has over four million followers and seems to be very good at helping videos go viral. Activegan is a new initiative to help vegan activists be more effective (Chen Cohen, one of their founders, helped organize our CEVA training). A vegan congress mainly intended for activists attracted 1,400 people in February 2017. And then, of course, there is the in-your-face activism of the 269Life movement, which originated in Israel, and where activists publicly allow themselves to be branded with the number 269 – the number of a dairy calf born on an Israeli farm.

That’s how active and dedicated the movement is. But what do the actual numbers say? While some reports show higher numbers (sometimes you read 5% vegans), the more realistic research (by the Central Bureau of Statistics) shows 1.7% vegans and 4.7% vegetarians in Israel. The poll asked what people called themselves, so actual figures may be lower still. Moreover, as activist Dylan Powell explains, Israel is in the top meat consuming countries in the world (after the US, New Zealand, Australia and Austria), and is the largest consumer of chickens in the world. The trend too seems upward for meat consumption, and Powell (who is explicitly pro-Palestinian) rightly says that the number of vegans in a country is not necessarily all that revealing, and should be juxtaposed with per capita meat consumption.

What’s different about Israel?
Even if the vegan success in Israel for now seems to be mainly confined to Tel Aviv and to a cultural elite, and even if it can hardly be called light years ahead of other progressive countries, it is still quite impressive. Especially impressive is the speed at which it all happened. A couple of years ago, the movement was very small. I already wrote about Yourofsky, who seemed to have reinvigorated the movement, but from conversations with Israeli activists, I also found some other factors that may have facilitated a quick growth.

One distinct characteristic of Jewish culture are its food laws. The widespread custom of indicating products as kosher, and avoiding non-kosher products (as many, though by no means all Jews do), probably makes it easier for Jews to understand – and be tolerant and open toward – vegan practices of food-avoidance. Israelis also seem to maintain very direct, open and honest communication, which may make it easier still to talk about one’s preferences and ethics.

Another factor may be that Israel is a really small country and that it is relatively easy to reach a big part of the population through its few media outlets. Also, unlike in most Western countries, there is a good vegan culinary basis in Israel (and in other nations in the Middle East). Hummus and falafel (both made of chickpeas) are staple foods that are just about everywhere (people here actually eat entire plates of hummus).
Finally, in my experience with the animal rights movement in the US, I have repeatedly been struck by the disproportionately high number of Jewish people in it. It is possible that the Jews, having been subjected to relentless persecution and hostility over the ages, have an easier time empathizing with the plight of other oppressed minorities. Which, of course, brings us to the Palestine question.

The Palestine conundrum
While we were planning our trip, one activist wrote me that he found it unethical not to gently push us to also visit the occupied territories. It didn’t feel right to me to just enjoy great vegan food in Tel Aviv while I was aware of all the things happening in the region, and so we took a guided tour of East Jerusalem, and one of the city Hebron. The latter tour was run by the organization Breaking the Silence, a group of Israeli ex-soldiers who decided to break their silence about what they had seen during their army service. As I am writing this, prime minister Netanyahu just canceled a meeting with the German minister of foreign affairs because the latter had talked to Breaking the Silence. Many Israelis consider Breaking the Silence to be a group of traitors, but to me, our guide seemed very reasonable and objective, and even though they were obviously critical of the country, they could hardly be called anti-Israel. All of this is testament to what I experienced myself: that there is a heavy taboo against speaking about the Israel-Palestine conflict, and that any criticism of Israel will easily be considered anti-semitic by some.

Having seen and heard what is happening in the occupied territories, I find it hard to ignore the whole Israeli-Palestine problem in the context of an article about veganism. Experience has already taught me that there is no position where you can stand on this topic without getting a lot of rather intense feedback. I do understand that the matter is very complicated, and that a short stay in Israel cannot make the whole story clear to me (one of our guides was a Palestinian, another was a secular Jewish woman; so, I didn’t get any religious view on things). Still, what I heard and witnessed in Hebron and other places seemed very unjust, to say the least.

Some people in the animal rights movement – while they may believe that animal rights and human rights are connected – are not in favor of mixing the animal rights message with “politics”, fearing that it will alienate people with different political views from caring about the animals who are so desperately in need of support, independent of our political views and affiliations. Others fear that attention for animal rights, when not combined with a concern for human rights, may come at the cost of the latter, or that a concern for animal rights and veganism can even be used to hide the lack of concern for human rights. This, of course, is especially a concern in Israel. This is a quote from Israeli professor of international law Aeyel Gross:

When veganism becomes a tool to improve the IDF’s [Israeli Defense Forces] image, or that of Israel as a whole (…) and when attempts are being made to cover up the fact that the IDF operates an occupation mechanism that denies people their basic human rights, veganism is being appropriated for propaganda purposes. In Tel Aviv today, it is far easier to find food whose preparation has not involved the exploitation of animals than to find food whose production has not entailed the oppression and uprooting of other human beings.

He adds:

It should be emphasized that there are many vegans who are strongly opposed to any form of oppression. For such individuals, veganism is not a substitute for struggling against the oppression of other human beings, but instead is part and parcel of that struggle.

Worth mentioning in this context is the young vegan movement among Israeli Arabs (who constitute 20% of the Israeli citizens). Their group is called “The Vegan Human”. The Palestinian Animal League (PAL) is Palestine’s only locally-run animal protection organization, and has successfully crowdfunded a vegetarian/vegan cafeteria in a university in Jerusalem.

Food
The food we tasted, everywhere we went, was awesome pretty much across the board. These Israeli vegans know how to cook! The best experience was the fabled Georgian restaurant Nanuchka in Tel Aviv, which used to be a very meaty place, but was completely veganized after the owner, Nana Shrier, went vegan herself. It seems to serve as a kind of symbol or landmark of the vegan changes that are happening in Israel. This happens everywhere, and even if the restaurant is not vegan, there are always ways to veganize dishes; I even managed to eat vegan at Madam Kwan’s delivery, which is impressive. In spite of the warnings the owner of the restaurant we visited received, veganizing the restaurant has not hurt business, and indeed, the place was crowded when we were there. We dined with good friends in a wonderful atmosphere, sampling wonderful Georgian dishes from an extensive menu. There were delicious “krtofiliani”, or puff pastry filled with potatoes and onions, and the famous dumplings stuffed with spinach and nuts. I also remember wonderful “meatballs” in tomato sauce, with a Georgian twist. It’s a place I can’t wait to go back to.

Breakfast at Landwer Cafe

On Sunday, we had brunch in the wonderful Café Anastasia, which was alive with the energy of numerous families. I was moved to see that so many people came to eat here and that veganism seemed, at that moment, the most natural and accepted thing in the world.

Goodness is a new fast-food-like, small, all vegan restaurant, with delicious food and friendly service. And we had yummy stuff from the vegan bakery Seeds, most of which I unfortunately accidentally left on the bus from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

In Jerusalem, we enjoyed the food at Landwer Cafe, a chain of over sixty restaurants that offers traditional Israeli food, and recently added a decent choice in vegan dishes to its menu, one of them a vegan breakfast. In the famous Machane Jehudah market, we had ice cream and a waffle in Gela, which is a small chain of ice cream cafes practicing what I call “stealth veganism”: if you don’t know this is an all vegan place when you walk in, you won’t know by the time you walk out. A table near the window in the well-hidden Fig restaurant offered us a beautiful view of the old city wall.

What’s next for the vegan movement in Israel?
The animal rights/vegan movement in Israel is definitely kicking ass. I do think that confrontational tactics and morality-infused messages can be very effective to recruit new activists. But they might be – as some Israelis told me – more effective in Israel than in other countries because of the very direct way of communication Israelis have. We can also wonder whether new activists recruited by these messages should then employ the same tactics to convince the rest of the population. We may be, as Che Green of Faunalytics has written, the low hanging fruit, and what convinced us (early adopter vegans) may not be what will get the masses to join our ranks.

The young movement in Israel, though, is already using different tactics to enlarge its appeal. Anonymous for Animals is putting a lot of effort into Veganuary-like vegan pledges, organizing Facebook support groups of four hundred people each, and taking their message to the classroom. The Meatless Monday campaign is geared towards a large audience. The group Vegan Friendly seems very successful at working together with businesses and is thus helping to make alternatives better and more available. The Modern Agriculture Foundation brings together and encourages different stakeholders in the field of clean (cultured) meat, and jumpstarted the initiative Supermeat, which tries to to create clean (cultured) chicken meat.

What’s happening in Israel in terms of veganism is inspiring. I hope the vegan movement there will find a way to incorporate human rights and speak out for disadvantaged and oppressed groups without alienating possible supporters with more conservative views. This, of course, is a challenge for animal advocates anywhere.

Thanks to Chen Cohen, Elina Zolotushko, Sahar Vardi, Yossi Wolfson, Omer Ginsburg, Shahar Osovsky, Lihi Joffe, Ronen Bar, Ori Shavit, Or Benjamin, Miki Haimovich, Omri Paz, and others whom I forget, for making our trip even more enjoyable, informative, and effective, and for making this article more complete and correct.

Sources
The Rise of Israel’s animal rights movement
The Myth of vegan progress in Israel
Greenwashing: Vegan Israel eats a lot of chicken
Israel is the most vegan country in the world
Israel has most vegans per capita and trend is growing
In the land of milk and honey, Israelis turn vegan
Can animal rights take precedence over human rights?
Will Israel become the world’s first vegan country?

Getting out of our vegan crater: on the inbreeding of vegan ideas

The Ngorongoro crater in Tanzania formed when an ancient volcano exploded, a long time ago. The crater is 600 meters deep and covers an area of 260 square kilometers. It is home to a very dense population of Masai lions. The crater is a natural enclosure: the lions don’t leave the crater, and it is very rare that a lion enters from the outside. Thus, there are few new bloodlines to enter the local gene pool, and the lion population is significantly inbred. The result is that the lions suffer from several diseases, and the population is not thriving.

A Masai lion in the Ngurunguru Crater (photo: planetreserve.com)
A Masai lion in the Ngorongoro Crater (photo: planetreserve.com)

While, like all comparisons, imperfect, I use the situation in the Ngorongoro crater to make a point about the vegan movement and vegan advocacy. This kind of inbreeding may also apply to ideologies and ideas. Vegan ideas too can be inbred. Many of us spend a lot of our time in our vegan craters. We post in vegan Facebook groups, go to vegan potlucks, do activism with other vegans… Our environment echoes our thoughts; social media algorithms keep showing our posts to the same people who keep liking them and share them among the same people (hence the description of the internet as an echo chamber). When our thinking and our thoughts are shaped mainly through interaction with other vegans, without enough confrontation with the “outside”, our ideas may become “inbred”, and are not ideally fit to spread and reproduce and influence outsiders.

In order to increase our own population, we need to get out of our natural habitat, out our own Ngorongoro crater, out of the vegan echo chambers, and talk to other people. We need to listen to their ideas, let them collide with ours, and let them fertilize our own thinking. Many of us are already doing that, but I believe we could do a lot better still. Most of all, we need to know what non-vegans think of our messages, and how they perceive us. We need to be open-minded to listen to their concerns and objections, and not just write them off as laziness, egoism or prejudice. And we need to listen to the ideas of potential allies, even if they don’t agree with our objective one hundred percent.

We can also be more open at a more structural level. We may need to open up our meetings more to people from the outside. I have heard instances of vegan conferences where non-vegans were not welcome as speakers. As if those people can’t teach us anything! The same may apply for boards of directors of vegan and animal rights organizations. It’s not necessarily a bad idea to have a minority of non-vegans on them (or at least in some advisory position). It may help the organization to understand how people who don’t entirely agree with them see things. And it may help everyone to maintain a sense of perspective.

I’m not saying that places where only vegans are welcome (like vegan-only Facebook groups) don’t have their purpose. People may need to vent, may want to discuss stuff without always being confronted with the same clichés. But we need to be aware of the dangers and limits of vegan-only environments.

One person who is great at breaking things open and involving people from outside the movement is Brian Kateman, the young founding director of the Reducetarian Foundation. The Reducetarian.org website contains endorsements from the likes of Richard Dawkins and Noam Chomsky. The new book, The Reducetarian Solution, has articles written by famous non-vegans influencers like Seth Godin, Jeffrey Sachs and Michael Schermer. On May 20-21, the Reducetarian Foundation is also organizing the first Reducetarian Summit in New York (which I will attend as a speaker for ProVeg and report back from). Brian had the great idea to invite people working at different online media outlets to moderate the panels. The list is impressive, and includes people from USA Today, Quartz, Time Magazine, Gizmodo, Forbes, The Atlantic, and Fast Company. These influentials will undoubtedly help spread the message further through their networks. The list of organizations represented by the speakers is just as impressive: beyond the usual suspects, like HSUS, Animal Equality and Farm Sanctuary, there are also people from less obvious NGOs like Greenpeace, Oxfam and the World Resources Institute. But also people from companies, from Google Food to Compass and Barilla, are present. The heterogeneity of the speakers, moderators and participants seems to make for an ideal setup for exchanging ideas and thinking outside of the vegan box.

Part of the strategy, Kateman says, is to get groups who aren’t working on reducing the consumption of animal products to feel invited to start. The reducetarian concept enables Kateman to start a conversation with groups that are not working on this topic, but, given the domain that they are in, easily could. The reason, of course, is that the reducetarian thing is much easier for people to participate in than the vegan thing. Not only is it more feasible, it seems also much less of an ideology – which people are often wary to get into or to be associated with. But – at least for the vegans involved in reducetarian outreach – the end goal remains the same. It’s just that we can probably reach that goal faster if, in addition to influencing just a few people to go vegan, we can influence many more people to reduce. This is and, for the time being, will be what drives supply and demand, creates critical mass and will tip the system.

Some words on an activist called Roger Yates

Many people like my ideas on veganism and animals, some people don’t. Of the people who don’t, some give fair criticism. That is of course all right. Other people’s criticism is less fair: it can be a mixture of ad hominem arguments, strawman arguments, misrepresentations, half-truths, and even downright lies. These people often also badmouth me and just generally try to depict me as anti-vegan, a traitor, or whatever. It is sad, but yes, this kind of thing also happens within the vegan movement.

I try to ignore people who unfairly criticize me as much as possible, and in all the years some of them have gone after me, I think I have not mentioned any of them by name so far on this blog. Here I’m making an exception and talk about one of them: an Irish activist named Roger Yates.

Why do I name him and write about this person? Because he keeps badmouthing me and misrepresenting my views as much as he can. And now and then other people just run with his stuff, uncritically accepting it (maybe because it fits in their views). Whoever wants to know more about Yates’ beef with me can get some information in this post, and judge for him- or herself if they should take this person seriously.

Roger Yates is a longtime animal rights activist. I have no doubt that he cares deeply about animals and has their interests at heart. Unfortunately, that doesn’t prevent him from bashing other activists, like me. Here’s a brief list of examples of some of his nasty behavior toward me.

  • Ever since he got familiar with my work, Yates has tried to point out I am into activism for the money, calling me a careerist. He is, in other words, thinking he can mindread my motivations and intentions. I have pointed out to him that in about 15 years of full time or more than full time activism, I have received a fulltime salary for exactly 3 months. The rest of my work was either as a volunteer, or at very low pay. Today I speak around the world and only get my expenses paid. Apart from a small sum (250 € after tax) for part of my work, everything I do is unpaid.
  • Yates has made several video compilations about me, where he frames what I say in a way that is meant to engender negative feelings about me from whoever watches them. When for instance I state that I would eat a steak for 100.000 euro and give the money to an animal rights organization, he cuts the video off right before I’m saying that i would give the money to an animal rights organization, while playing a tune about money in the background. This one example is very indicative of how disingenuous he can behave.
  • RY has made unauthorized recordings of things i said, including personal sensitive things, where I didn’t know i was being recorded, and has put them on the internet.
  • My position is that now and then making exceptions (e.g. when a non vegan friend has made a pasta dish for you but forgot about the tiny bit of eggs in the dough) is a viable option in the sense that such (pragmatic) exceptions would help others not have an overly difficult idea of veganism, and thus help more animals. Yates makes of that that i actually “encourage people to eat animals”. I believe it’s easy to see that this is a gross and dishonest representation of my ideas.
  • Here’s another example. When i say that to some non-vegans some of our behavior might look a bit crazy at times, Yates makes of that that I “tell new impressionable vegans that consistent vegans are mentally ill”.
  • Yates has suggested that during my time at EVA (Ethical Vegetarian Alternative), which has received subsidies from the goverment for almost fifteen years now (and which is actually quite an achievement), I sold out for that reason.

Yates has been attacked and misrepresented by Gary Francione, and I’ve seen Yates ask other people not to believe whatever Francione is writing about him. Strangely, Yates himself doesn’t seem to realize he is doing exactly the same thing to people like me.

I have suggested at least ones that Yates and I sit down to have a conversation. He refused.

I do not want to judge the character of Roger Yates across the board. All I’m saying is that to me, this guy has been behaving quite dishonestly and nastily for about four years now.

If you want to judge me or my views, be a slow opinionist. Read what I write, listen to what I have to say, and don’t go by critics like Yates, who are out to poison the well just because they have a different opinion.

Vegan outrage over a Hampton Creek cookie? Let’s get some perspective.

In recent days, it has come to light that Hampton Creek, the maker of Just Mayo and Just Cookies, produces one cookie with white chocolate chips, which contain milk powder. As could be expected, many vegans expressed their disappointment on Hampton Creek’s social media channels, sometimes gracefully, sometimes less so.

Hampton Creek’s mayo, dressings, cookie dough, and all but this one cookie in their food service range, are vegan. In the short time since it was founded, the company has been incredibly successful. It was able to raise almost one hundred million dollars of venture capital from Bill Gates and other big shots, allowing them to put together a dream team and invest a lot in research and communication. But Hampton Creek also helped demonstrate that a plant-based future is interesting to invest in. And they have helped further normalize plant-based eating with the enormous media attention they have garnered. More concretely, however, their products are now helping to make a vegan diet easier for everyone, and are being used by big food service providers in the US. And while they were at this, they have inadvertently stimulated Unilever to create their own vegan mayo. Talk about results!

So, what exactly is the shit-storm about? Some time ago, Hampton Creek signed a contract with the nation’s largest food service provider, the Compass Group. Hampton Creek would supply Compass with plant-based alternatives for their range of (non-vegan) cookies. Apparently, Hampton Creek has, so far, not been able to find vegan white chocolate chips that met with Compass’ approval. According to Hampton Creek CEO Josh Tetrick, it was a package deal: either HC supplied five vegan cookies and the one almost vegan macadamia cookie, or they wouldn’t get the contract and thus have no impact for the animals at all. So, HC decided to move forward, and supply Compass with their imperfect offering, while working on finding or developing suitable vegan white chocolate chips.

Many of the commenting vegans demonstrate incredulity at Hampton Creek’s inability to find or develop suitable white chocolate chips. I’m giving HC the benefit of the doubt, and am assuming that creating even one non-vegan product is not something that they would do without good reason, because they must know it creates confusion. So, I’m assuming that time or other factors were of the essence and that they were afraid of losing the contract – in which case, again, they would have had no impact for the animals at all.

Should Hampton Creek have held off cooperating with the food service provider until they had all vegan alternatives? Let’s assume Compass was patient enough and wanted to wait awhile. Would it have been better for Compass to go on, in the meantime, distributing their non-vegan cookies while they were waiting for Hampton Creek? I don’t think so. Like Tetrick says, every day that less animal products are used, is good for the animals. Maybe we have to admire Hampton Creek here for daring to get their hands a bit “dirty” on a non-vegan product. This whole situation makes me think of the issue many vegans have when individuals chose to go vegan in steps rather than overnight. What if someone who went vegan overnight was actually someone who did nothing until they could be perfect (i.e., go vegan overnight) and thus missed their chance of doing good for the animals by reducing?

Some vegans state that they can’t understand that Hampton Creek, in the time that this non-vegan macadamia cookie has been on the market, has not been able to come up with a vegan white chocolate chip. But who are we to say that this should be Hampton Creek’s priority right now? The little bit of milk powder is such a detail relative to the bigger picture (and yes, dear vegan friends, I know how cows are treated for dairy), and maybe Hampton Creek is in the process of developing very interesting and more life-saving products and contracts that take up their attention.

Maybe Hampton Creek could have been more pro-active in its communication about this, and could have anticipated (and maybe prevented) this kind of backlash. They could have explained their reasoning from the get go, rather than keep quiet about the offending cookie and only getting in the conversation when the vegans found out. On the other hand, it has to be said that Hampton Creek and CEO Josh Tetrick have been quite responsive on social media.

Other than this, I have a lot more difficulty understanding the reactions of the offended vegans than I have understanding what Hampton Creek did. I can read several things in these reactions, which I go into a bit deeper here, as they – in my humble opinion – are revealing for the often quite unstrategic ways of thinking that is rampant in the vegan movement.

Black and white, all or nothing thinking
Hampton Creek has done a ton of good for animals. It was, in fact, founded with the idea to do exactly that. In the eyes of the offended vegans, however, the presence of a tiny bit of animal ingredient in one product (milk powder in the chocolate chips in one product among their whole range of products) seems to annihilate all Hampton Creek’s efforts and good deeds. I saw many commenters saying they were unfollowing the company and wouldn’t support them or buy their products anymore. Not 100% vegan, so no good, right? This all-or-nothing thinking gets us nowhere.

Distrust of corporations
One commenter says: “You’ll happily disregard your morals and ethics and exploit animals for a share of the market and financial gain (…). What an absolute shame.”
Among many vegans (and other activists for social issues) the default attitude towards companies and the corporate world seems to be one of distrust. One aspect of this is to always reduce companies’ and CEOs’ motivations and intentions to mere greed. First of all, a desire to make a profit doesn’t seem to be the main motivation of Tetrick and Hampton Creek. They very obviously have a social mission and are definitely not a profit-only company. Secondly, we need to take into account that a venture like Hampton Creek is beholden to its investors, and does need to make a profit – otherwise it simply wouldn’t exist in this system. Thirdly, when a company like Hampton Creek does good business, they will acquire more impact and influence to change things for the better for animals. In that sense, the fact that money is a driver for many people can be seen as a positive thing, at least when it’s combined with some ethical fiber – which Tetrick and HC certainly seem to have.

Mistaking an ally for an enemy
I see it happen again and again: a company or organization does a lot of good, but watch out when vegans don’t agree, on when the company slips up! While there are more than enough horrible companies in the world, we seem to reserve a disproportionate part of our anger for the ones that are actually our allies. What we may be witnessing here is the so-called “black sheep effect”, where members of a group can be more hostile and unforgiving towards other members of the in-group when they make a mistake, than to people not belonging to the group. Offending in-group members are then seen as traitors. A lot can probably be explained by the fact that our expectations of them (they were one of us!) weren’t met. It’s the same with ex-vegans.

Putting purity and rules over pragmatism and results
Every decision here,” Tetrick has responded on social media, “is based on this fundamental principle: what will increase the probability of maximizing good (including alleviating suffering) for the longest period of time.”
Our movement is often obsessed with veganism and vegan rules, at the cost of results. Yes, Hampton Creek technically is not a 100% vegan company. But what if this creates more good for the animals in the long run?

Ignoring the importance of institutional change
In an article on this subject on Ecorazzi, the author writes: “Ultimately, I do not care what they do. They are a company created to make products to fulfill consumer demand, whether vegan or non-vegan. What I care about is what we do, individually. We need to continue to educate – clearly and simply – so that we change how our friends, colleagues and family perceive animals.”
I’m presuming I don’t need to explain why institutional change – which Tetrick set out to generate – is crucial for our movement, and that we won’t get there by just convincing one individual at a time to go vegan. We need institutional partners: companies, NGOs, governments, schools, hospitals and many more. They can have an incredible impact on supply and demand and help change the playing field for everyone.

A holier-than-thou attitude
In the comments of many offended vegans, I seem to be able to read that non-vegans can never be right, while vegans can never be wrong. I get the impression that the people who are very very very vegan, sitting behind their computer, think that they are better, more pure, more praiseworthy than the company they are criticizing, a company that in a short period of time has done an amazing job in changing the food system. Incidentally, I’ve seen so many vegans lecturing Tetrick and HC about the issues related to dairy. Do we seriously think that Tetrick is not aware of these issues?

Hampton Creek is a great company, which is doing its best to create a better food system. It’s still a company in an imperfect world, run by imperfect people. So, it will be imperfect. But it’s doing a ton of good. What if we would focus on the incredible amount of chicken misery that Hampton is preventing, rather than on the tiny amount of animal ingredients that is for the time being, and probably for good reasons, still in their products?

In other words: can we please get some perspective? When we’re no longer in the situation that 65 billion animals a year are being killed for food (excluding sea animals), then maybe we can get very worked up about the dairy in the chocolate cookie in a great product range of a great company. Until then, let’s focus on the big changes instead of the details. Let’s have some trust that some people really want to do the right thing, also in business. Let’s reserve our outrage for the really bad folks. And let’s follow our vegan rules as well as possible, but let’s be prepared to break them when it helps more animals.

 

My upcoming book How to Create a Vegan World: a Pragmatic Approach (June 2017, Lantern Press), contains a whole chapter on how the vegan movement can relate to the corporate world.

PS: if I got my facts wrong, somebody let me know!