Food Studies Matter, Meaning, Movement Case Veganism and Morality, Melissa Montanari

CASE AND MORALITY MELISSA MAINSTREAM VEGAN APPROPRIATION PROBLEM MORALITY IN VEGAN NARRATIVES Melissa ( her ) is a candidate , Teaching Assistant , and Teaching Fellow in the Department and Cultural Studies at University . Her doctoral brings together literary studies and critical food studies by attending to the workings in material and textual gies . Alongside her dissertation , Melissa enjoys writing about the complex politics of and vegan health promotion in food media . She has also developed and taught a second year course on food in media and popular culture . 796 AND MORALITY

Learning Outcomes After reading and discussing this text , students should be able to Identify common rhetorical strategies used to construct narratives of moral consumption . Trace the complex relationship between mainstream and discourses of white femininity using the skill of . Situate analyses of food media within enduring and lapping systems of power . INTRODUCTION Vegan options are more Widely available than they once were in places like North America and Europe . With more vegan books , documentaries , fitness blogs , and meat in restaurants and grocery store deli sections , it would seem as though has captured mainstream tion . That said , the cultural politics and culinary roots of vegan foods are more complex than this popularity signals . For one , diets are much more than a trend some branches of , and Buddhism have practiced forms of ethical vegetarianism and for thousands of years . In addition , vegan practices rooted in equity and , such as those taken up by intersectional feminists , activists , and scholars have gained traction on social media . Yet most often , voices in the food media align vegan practices of , as well as the core ingredients in protein fermented soy , garbanzo beans , and the work of White bakers , chefs , cookbook Writers , recipe MELISSA 797

ers , and other personalities . In addition to erasing culinary , popular vegan promotion also perpetuates notions of purity and restraint . Online platforms that claim to concern themselves with topics that are important to women , such as Canada grated media brand , Chatelaine , and modern lifestyle brand , Goop , have banks of vegan recipes composed by white wellness experts . These recipes are often described using morally suggestive language like good , healthy , and , implying a virtuous element to sumption , one that is deeply and heavily informed by whiteness and diet culture . In the history of mainstream vegetarianism and , an appeal to one that prioritizes the interests and experiences of Women who are White , cis , straight , slim , and not new . During the Victorian era , vivisection was protested and diets were championed by financially and socially secure , white English women who saw certain kinds of cruelty as morally reprehensible . In ing a more public expression of white femininity , early of mainstream vegetarianism and not only outlined the values of an emerging white middle class , but also participated in defining , on the one hand , socially acceptable forms of violence ( which included violence against women of colour ) and , on the other hand , unacceptable forms of violence ( such as violence against animals ) One problem that continues in the promotion of today is that it centers the experiences and interests of white women in defining virtuous eating . This definition is , as it does not account for all of the cultural , economical , ecological , and geographical complexities that inform people food choices . Because of the ways and morality have been aligned in complicated ways , vegan food media offers a rich site to study 798 AND MORALITY

how language shapes , and produces ideas about food and morality . This chapter explores how the language of morality tries to place mainstream within a neat politics of consumption without critically examining how it is implicated in violent . By examining two examples of vegan food media , I explore how the language of morality operates as a pervading rhetorical strategy that takes away from the transformative possibilities of vegan practices . I have employed the literary method of close reading to locate and problematize the language of morality in mainstream vegan narratives . Close reading requires deep and sustained attention to how words are used and what those words connote or evoke . By using this method , I locate a pattern in the ways in which vegan practices are communicated in lar culture examples , and explain how this pattern interacts with race and gender in the space of food . MORALITY AND RACE , or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals , is the most controversial voice on . Founded by Ingrid in 1980 , has historically catered to class ideals and . On the one hand , outrage against the cultural practices of Black , Indigenous , and people of colour . On the other , they appropriate recipes from these in order to promote an abundance of healthy veggie options on their website and other platforms . In May of 2020 , in the midst of the COVID pandemic , held an investigation on the status of wet markets in Asia . This investigation was titled Filthy Wet Markets Are Still Selling Scared Animals and Rotting Flesh Despite Mounting Death ( The tagline on the website goes on to say , It MELISSA 799

bloody , filthy environments like these in which zoonotic diseases ) In the investigation , relied heavily on ing morality to promote and posited that wet markets in Asia are a locus for disease . However , the investigation did not address the importance of wet markets in urban spaces , where access to fresh foods is limited nor did it account for any , cultural , geographic , or economic variances that inform people food access and food decisions . After all , not everyone has equal access to food , and not everyone eats the same foods for the same reasons . In contrast to publications like Chatelaine and Goop , which use words like clean and pure to describe vegan recipes , uses words like bloody , filthy , and rotting to illustrate wet markets in Asia . What does this kind of language imply about the people who acquire or sell fresh food there ?

By excluding important context , such as the existence of wet markets in North America and Europe , language highlights the racial biases and embedded in the organizations mainstream saging . BRANDING WITH KINDNESS AND LOVE In the age of social media , brands have gone online to participate in cultural activities and social movements . Language plays an important role in how brands position themselves in these spaces . Sometimes the sentiments expressed on social media are extensions of an organization commitments to social justice . Other times , these sentiments overemphasize a brand advocacy work by deploying culturally and emotionally charged words . Words like consciousness , love , and kindness are . 2020 . 800 AND MORALITY

popular in the branding of vegan businesses as they work to sell as an entirely virtuous form of consumption . This kind of morally coded language was mobilized at large after the murder of George Floyd in May 2020 . At this time , many businesses social media with statements about their brands commitment to ending racial violence . However , many did not take responsibility for their racist business practices , nor were they transparent about the steps they would take going ward . One example of how this played out in the vegan was with two cookbook authors and vegan bakery owners . These two white women posted a response to racism that claimed to welcome an open dialogue of kindness , love and support on . Shortly after the post went live , Black women spoke out , stating that their questions and criticisms of the brand were being deleted from the comment section of the post . As the post gained more attention , the owners disabled the entirely , hiding the initial concerns from view . They then posted two apologies that were accompanied by graphics reading With love and We are built for love , but refused to the comment section . In these posts , the ers used the business branding as evidence of their innocence they claimed that their vegan business had always been a place of love and , for people and for animals . By erasing the words of Black women , the business owners their virtue narrative , using morality and as the anchor . Comments and articles that were posted in defence of the ers similarly evoked these ideas to cast the women as victims of an angry and digital mob . The concerns of Black women were transformed into a narrative about white women virtues . MELISSA 801

CONCLUSION Although it is deployed differently in each observation , the of morality in mainstream vegan discourse serves to suade readers or customers to think or feel a certain way , not only about their food , but also about the brands they support . By paying close attention to the language of mainstream , one can observe how words can reinforce violent of power . While vegan food writing and marketing may seem inconsequential in the face of issues like starvation , racism , settler colonialism , and environmental tion , there is much to unpack in terms of how appeals to morality enable people , institutions , and businesses to deny their ity in violent systems on the basis of their food choices . These examples point to the ways in which food practices , and the ple who partake in them , are represented in cultural . As a cultural practice , certainly carries transformative possibilities . From destabilizing hierarchies between human and animals to increasing the availability and of culturally specific foods in the , to ing the environmental impact of the food system , or eating more broadly ) is rich to think with . There is a lot of exciting and collaborative work happening in the space of vegan food . However , the transformative potential of these kinds of shifts are limited by the ways that mainstream , as a practice and a cultural text , continues to perpetuate narratives about eating that frame some people diets and cultural as more virtuous than others . At the same time , these same narratives ignore big factors that shape people food choices , including geographic location , cultural and religious practices , and structural barriers within the food system . Paying close and careful attention to the narrative of mainstream is one 802 AND MORALITY

place to begin refraining conversations about food to address topics of access and equity . Discussion Questions Why do you think the topic of morality plays such a critical role in conversations about ?

How do food media and popular culture shape the way we talk about food ?

How might this or enforce systemic barriers to food access ?

What would a more inclusive look like ?

How can Vegans not perpetuate some of the examined above regarding race and gender ?

Additional Resources , 2021 . Learning to Unlearn with Emily , May . Harper , 2016 . Sistah Vegan food justice A ! January 27 . King , and Fu . 2021 . Rumor Chinese Diets and Questions and Answers about Chinese Food and ing Meant to Be Eaten . Heritage Radio One . Accessed May 12 . 2020 . Episode On Secret Feminist Agenda , January 29 . MELISSA 803

, Kennedy , Batista . 2020 . Episode 29 The Morality of Point of Origin , produced by Whetstone Media ( podcast ) November 18 . 2020 . Wet Markets Still Killing Despite and Undercover ( blog ) 19 , 2022 . 804 AND MORALITY