I am going to suggest that being vegan is a sign of wealth and corruption. It is a sign of wealth because you have enough money, and access to enough foods, to balance your diet: we are omnivores and having some meat makes balancing your diet much easier. It is corrupt because the people who do this are sensitive about small things — such as not eating animals (many of whom have not been raised in natural environments, and for whom suffering is part of their daily existence) or using animal products but ignoring the suffering that occurs in the manufacture of the ethically sensitive shoes and clothes somewhere in a factory in Szechuan.

We may have exported the pollution and damage making things does overseas, but damage still occurs.

But… we are told that you cannot offend these people. These people must not only be let alone, but their prejudices must be agreed to with enthusiasm and obeyed. We must, if not be vegan act as if we were. We must eat only what they approve of.

This is nonsense. I have my own food biases: I think naturally raised animals who range freely taste better and have a better life. I like non pesticide vegetables, preferably ones I have grown. I like cooking with coconut oil.

The Italians have a sensible system: they eat what they know, eat the same foods frequently, but what they have is of the best quality. Most Chinese families, as soon as they are not starving, take the same position.

I have dietary limits — around fish heads, chicken feet and beaks, and some types of offal. And rice pudding. When I was a youngster, I was allowed to have one food I hated — and rice pudding it was. But my mother, who cannot stand bananas (which, ironically is an aversion my sons share) would make banana cake for us… even though it turned her stomach. My mum has her own kind of courage.

But we need to go further, and look at the text carefully. For the offended among us complain and moan and want us to obey their laws and restrictions, even when they are not rational.

1 Corinthians 8:1-13

¹Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. ²Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge; ³but anyone who loves God is known by him.

⁴Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “no idol in the world really exists,” and that “there is no God but one.” ⁵Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth – as in fact there are many gods and many lords – ⁶yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

⁷It is not everyone, however, who has this knowledge. Since some have become so accustomed to idols until now, they still think of the food they eat as food offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. ⁸“Food will not bring us close to God.” We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. ⁹But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. ¹⁰For if others see you, who possess knowledge, eating in the temple of an idol, might they not, since their conscience is weak, be encouraged to the point of eating food sacrificed to idols? ¹¹So by your knowledge those weak believers for whom Christ died are destroyed. ¹²But when you thus sin against members of your family, and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. ¹³Therefore, if food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall.

The issues around dealing with the offended require a bit of work. So let’s look at a quote I read a couple of days ago. Zippy is male, and among the feminine traits he is noting is a tendency to parrot what the elite group says, to not think for yourself, to not examinx scripture or your conscience or tradition.

To not du your duty. To follow, not to lead. To be a herd animal, a sheeple. SSM, however, who is writing, is quite female.

Yikes. What was it Zippy said again? Oh yes:

>Every man should go deep within himself and get in touch with his feminine side. Then he should strangle the bitch.

Ladies, you certainly don’t have to abide by this guy’s list in totality, but the basic standards for feminine behavior really are pretty straightforward: be loyal, sweet, kind, generous, sexually-available (to your husband), thoughtful of his needs, admiring, respectful, fit, and make a reasonable effort to maintain your appearance. You don’t have to do these things for all men, I guess, but is it really unreasonable to put in this moderate level of effort for your man, the one who has committed himself to you? Don’t listen to modern women who tell you that your relationship should be all about you and you alone; take some joy in pleasing your man. These really are not terribly difficult standards to meet and don’t involve turning yourself into a doormat.

We should not over restrict our lives. We are not relying on the laws of purity to make us right with God, but Christ himself. Now, I see nothing wrong with keeping a Kosher home, and if you were raised within the Tribe and are now of Christ… keep on eating that way. But we do not need to take on the scruples of the Islamists, and only eat food they have made ritually pure, or the vegans, and only eat vegetables out of some perversion of Hindu idolatry, or even ethically.

Sometimes the safest food you can eat is at the local fast food emporium: the Maccas, the KFC. I have never eaten a high quality meal there, but I have never got sick there. I have eaten exquisite restaurant food… and I have also spent two days alternating between the bathroom and bed with food poisoning after eating food from a conference hotel. More that once, I would add.

We have enough difficulty in this life. We do not improve our spirituality or virtue by being exquisitely correct in our diet or our lifestyle. We need, instead to do good and keep ourselves from corruption, including the delusion that we are spiritually growing as we make our own spiritual hell, one restriction at a time.

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Update.

@SunshineMarySSM Just like the homosexuals, acceptance becomes approval becomes repression. If it is Christ or Atheists, guess who I choose?

— The Shadowed Knight (@AShadowedKnight) March 25, 2014