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Vegfest

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Way back in 1944, when the Vegan Society was born, they dabbled with different names and ended up with “Vegan’ the letters of which were ‘the beginning and end of veg-etari-an.’  Hard to imagine that they were being that prophetic all those decades ago, but boy, are they gaining traction now.  These days, vegetarianism is the gateway food choice to veganism.

In the 70s the Vegan Society began publishing a printed list of vegan foods.  This was in the days when ingredient lists on food products were optional.  Of particular interest was crisps: the only flavour listed as acceptable to vegans was “Prawn Cocktail Flavour”.  All the other crisps had milk powder or derivatives in their flavour coatings.   It wasn’t easy being a vegan then, well now it is…and much more fun.

Anybody who was at the vegan mega-festival “VegFest UK” in Brighton in the last week of March could be forgiven for thinking the battle was over and that vegan militancy could lighten its stance.   No way, vegans are on a roll.  There was seminar after seminar on activism. 

There is a dynamism about Veganism that warms my heart.  None of the friendly compromise between vegetarians and meat eaters, no common ground.   The consumer of eggs and milk is complicit in shortening the lives (I could’ve said ‘murder’ but I’m trying to walk the middle ground here) of chickens and calves.  Vegans’ hands are clean.  

The Hunt Saboteurs Association were handing out copies of their magazine ‘Howl,’ which contained an erudite article dismissing the stereotype that hunt sabs are really about class war and ‘sticking it to the toffs’.  This critique diminishes the seriousness of the passionate and militant wing of veganism.  But what is clear to any vegan is that all activity that involves taking food away from animals or killing them for their meat (or for fun) has got to stop. 

The Brighton Centre was rammed.  At any given time there were up to half a dozen well-attended workshops, lectures, discussions and musical events - this wasn’t just about looking at lots of interesting vegan products, this was about conferring, debating and consolidating the thinking of the movement.   Plenty of beards and dreadlocks but also plenty of mainstream middle-class people who had come along to get with the programme.  The youth of the attendees bodes well for the future of veganism over the next few decades.   Speakers were armed with the facts: if we were all vegan then climate change anxiety would disappear, the countryside would be more biodiverse, badgers would sleep in peace and the pressure on the NHS would disappear. 

Vegans understand nutrition much better nowadays and there were lots of products that contained the kind of concentrated nutrients that are important to athletes and active vegan lifestyles.   I chatted to one particularly muscular guy and his very fit wife Zoe.  He said the guys at the gym can’t quite believe he really is vegan, thinking he must be sneaking meat somewhere to keep those pecs so well defined.   “Protein is protein,” he commented.  “It’s the iron you pump with it that counts.”

Junk food has its place in veganism too.  There was a burger stall with proud signage: “Vegan Junk Food.”  And CBD was all over the place, in food, in remedies and in skincare.  All you have to do is call it ‘medicinal’ and low-grade cannabis fetches a better price than skunk.  The Hempen Cooperative were selling hemp leaf tea, hemp seed oil and CBD oil.  I suppose you could smoke the tea if you were so inclined.  

Although many of the speakers extolled the environmental virtues of veganism, I was surprised at how many products on display were not organic.  My first reaction was that vegans were less concerned about organic provenance than about being animal product-free.  However, it soon became evident that there is an opportunistic element - many food processors make vegan products anyway, could care less about vegan or organic principles but see a fast-growing market and were out in force to capture the loyalty of this very committed constituency.   

I sampled and bought a jar of yummy vegan pesto - it was indistinguishable from (I hesitate to use the adjective), the ‘real’ thing.

 

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