Vegan food
Vegan food is food that does not kill or hurt animals. Although many of the food items look edible, the package the vegan food came in is tastier and has much fewer calories, fat, and artificial sweeteners, flavorings, and colors.
Euell Gibbons' best-selling book Eat This, Not That! says raw fruits and vegetables are the most healthy of vegan foods, but nobody buys them anymore. Gibbons himself was notorious for eating acorns and pine cones. He was also notorious for being dead. The reader can draw his own conclusions.
Basis[edit]
Vegan food is better than vegetarian food. Vegetarians believe that humans should not kill or hurt innocent little animals. And, so far, few animals have been found guilty in a court of law. In most developed nations, animals cannot even be forced to give incriminating testimony. Vegetarians believe that animals are nice and it is unthinkable to eat them. You could no more eat them than, say, a co-ed attending Saint Anselm.
Vegans take this concept further, and believe that humans should not kill or hurt animals, or even put them to work. Veganism can therefore be thought of as vegetarianism for the welfare state. After all, no one really knows that cows want to give milk, as opposed to playing Skittles dahn th' pub. One may say that the milk needs to come out anyway, but the vegan defends the possibility that the cow would prefer to keep it inside, "for later." Likewise, vegans see the egg as an unhatched chicken person that cannot be consumed. It is interesting that most vegans are not quite as scrupulous about unhatched humans. Vegans even have some reason or other not to eat cheese.
Concern for the well-being of animals takes many forms. In 2016, Proposition 3 in Massachusetts would mandate that farmers not confine their animals in spaces where the animal could not turn around, bench-press, and do at least two somersaults in-line. It also required that the remote for the television be near at hand. Similar measures had already been enacted in California, and were a boon for sales of out-of-state products.
It is challenging to devise a menu that does not involve animals in any way, but the well-being of the animals takes precedence over the completeness of the diet. This is why most vegans have stringy hair, pallid skin, and vacant gazes.
History[edit]
Vegan food was brought to earth by spacefarers from an Earth-like planet orbiting the star Vega, hence its name. They had surely journeyed to the galaxy's Orion Arm looking for a new star that would not require a quart of oil on every fill-up of the tank nor seize up after 50,000 miles.
These were "little green men," which should have suggested that vegan food does not provide all the necessary nutrients. In addition to the pallid skin, like modern vegans (except that it was green to boot), they also had stringy hair and vacant gazes — through big eyes, with slits like those of kittens.
Unfortunately, vegan food was not yet invented when these galactic emissaries arrived on Earth. The cavemen ate all their Greens. However, the Vegan legacy was important in the development of human culture. Cave paintings indicate that these first Vegans were "greasy and tasted somewhat like chicken, but with a gamy after-taste."
Entrees[edit]
Having made the decision to become a vegan, it is worth considering what in the kitchen is left that you can eat and still think highly of yourself.
Tofu[edit]
Tofu is a food-like product consisting of soybeans, beans, and soy, with just enough artificial flavorings to make vegans eat it. Most tofu replaces beef, pork and chicken, but it can also be a substitute for duck, buffalo, camel, kitten, puppy, and elephant meat. Despite being flavored by Grade A garbage-can scum, most non-vegans interviewed in Eat This, Not That said that tofu has no taste at all, whereas vegans snub the interviewer.
Veggie burgers[edit]
When tofu is compacted and extruded into squarish forms, it becomes a veggie burger or tofu burger. It can then be eaten in a hamburger bun, except that there is probably some ethical reason not to eat the bun either. Many non-vegans prefer veggie burgers to tofu, not knowing that it is just another form of the same thing. Ensuring that fast-food restaurants do not serve veggie burgers is the only lasting effect of the American Revolution.
In England, veggie burgers are bought at chains such as Wimpy's, and mostly thrown straight into the garbage. In forward-looking cities, they may be fished out of the garbage, returned to the processing plant for return of the mandatory deposit, re-compacted and extruded again into the same squarish form for an entirely new veggie burger. This cycle has continued for over 30 years, explaining why veggie burgers are even more tasteless and stiff than when they were first invented.
Drinks[edit]
Dairy-free milk[edit]
Dairy-free milk (also called vegan milk) is a milk-like substance that comes from something vegan. It is important if one has vegan friends that vegan milk does not come from someone vegan. Vegans, along with their finicky beliefs on diet, also get prissy if an acquaintance tries to obtain vegan milk from them personally.
Unlike milk, which is called "moo-juice" if there are toddlers at the table, vegan milk has no cutesy nickname. Also unlike moo milk, vegan milk has a chemical in it that keeps it from spoiling. Most non-vegans say that vegan milk tastes worse than actual sour milk, but this additive can preserve the revolting taste for months on end.
Water[edit]
Water is one of the healthiest vegan foods, mainly because water does not come from a lab where toilet bowl cleaner is also made.
Many vegans don't drink water, because much of our water comes from Ethiopia, the country whose emaciated people eat only donations from vegans from America. Ethiopian water is naturally maggot-flavored. This means it is essentially a meat product.
Vegan food around the world[edit]
Korea was already notorious for its cuisine, but vegan food has made a resurgence in North Korea, where people in the countryside are said to favor tree bark. This menu item is crunchy and provides healthy exercise for teeth and jaws. If there are ticks on the trees, the meal becomes more challenging, though not strictly vegan. It is a meal with a "bite of its own," more so even than a jalapeño enchilada.
In some areas, where Koreans have stripped the bark from the trees cleaner than the most diligent porcupine, aid workers worry that the people will go back to their roots; that is, revert to eating cuddly house pets.
The North Korean military does not eat vegan food. Its diet consists mostly of filet mignon from foreign CARE packages. These are sent by people who no longer wish to think well of themselves for not eating animals, but instead wish to think well of themselves for shipping meat to places where poor people eat tree bark.
The future of vegan food[edit]
Vegans mostly being left-wingers, it will eventually not be enough to prove your moral superiority through diet. The vegan will need to prove his (or her, or its) moral superiority by bossing around the non-vegan. This will take place imperceptibly gradually:
- First, "right-to-know" laws will require labeling of foods produced through the involuntary use of animals. This will include when the animal has not indicated by hoofprint that she (or he) consented to be milked.
- Later, packaging will also have to specify that, although a food is vegan, it was produced in a factory that also produces non-vegan food, or were produced in a country or on a planet that also has non-vegans.
- Non-vegan food packages will have to bear gory, full-color photographs of the slaughter of animals. Use of cartoon characters and mascots that might be used to appeal to impressionable youths will be fined.
- Special taxes on non-vegan food will be collected. The revenue will be earmarked for the families of the victims. However, as most animals presented with a stack of banknotes merely try to eat them, a later reform will give the money directly to animal activists, such as the ones who wrote the reform.
Eventually, vegan eating will become mandatory. At that point, the vegan will lose that way to show how much more empathic he is than the rest of us, as we will all have to have equal empathy. The vegan will lose interest in the issue and adopt a new crusade. The rest of us will simply lose interest in food.