IS VEGANISM A MERE HEALTH ISSUE?
AHMET YILMAZ
The Covid-19 pandemic has caused great anxiety about human health in large masses around the world.
The process is evolving into something difficult to manage due to both physical and psychological conditions. Even many everyday practices that can be considered ordinary are forced to be filtered by certain rules that must be followed. After all, there is a monster-like virus that spreads fear, and the uncertainty about the impact of the virus drives people to be constantly on the alert.
When it comes to human health, it is obvious that one of the main factors is nutrition and eating habits. The relationship between the Covid 19 virus and animals remained in circulation, with stories at the level of urban legend from time to time. According to the “west side”, the habit of eating the meat of different animals, typical of Far Eastern cultures, quickly found a place in the public discourse as a means of judgment.
However, certain statistics show a significant increase in the tendency towards meatless diets in general and vegan diet in particular. In these statistics, it is not known how many people are thinking about the relationship between the Covid 19 pandemic and animal nutrition, but we are seeing an increase in the content that highlight the vegan diet to agenda healthy eating forms in the news.
According to a report by the Istanbul-based Vegan Assosiaciton’s food and nutrition magazine called Chef Pencil’s, “Veganism is twice as popular as it was five years ago, and it doesn’t seem to be accelerating at all. The pandemic did not prevent the rise of veganism; rather, it increased its popularity. As can be seen from the fact that veganism is on the rise in countries that mainly use meat and dairy products in their traditional kitchens, veganism is stronger than ever today.” Different data also support Chef Pencil’s report: “Another report compiled by market research firm SPINS and PBFA in May (2020) shows that in mid-March (2020), sales of plant-based food in the United States increased 90 percent compared to March last year, and plant-based meat sales increased 148 percent.”
Although these developments have been positively received by many vegan activists, they bring certain discussions along with them . Veganism as an area of rights advocacy has a very dynamic environment of interaction. In the past year, when the Covid 19 outbreak has shaped the world, with the popularization of veganism, many food brands, large and small, are also trying to appeal to consumers with vegan or plant-based options in Turkey as well. These include large companies such as Burger King that dominate the meat industry on a global scale, as well as relatively small businesses such as Karaköy Güllüoğlu baklava store, serving in Istanbul.
Whether news about vegan nutrition and human health during the pandemic may have created an interaction aimed at overshadowing the principled, political debate about veganism is open to debate. Veganism is basically shaped by an ethics and adopts a political attitude towards the anthropocentric approach. It is a tendency that vegan activists oppose that veganism is detached from its context by certain trends that focus solely on human health and also focus on people, and many activists describe it as “health veganism”. Because veganism, in general terms, represents a philosophy of life that rejects the idea that humans are superior to other animals, opposes the use of animals for human interests and industrialization, and does not accept speciesism.
Although it has been featured in the media as a popular headline on the occasion of the pandemic, the history of veganism, of course, goes back a long way. Veganism as a concept began to be used in 1944, and vegetarianism began to be used in 1842. In 1927, the great Iranian writer Sadik Hidayet, in his essay The Benefits of Vegetarianism, questioned the carnivore, which he claimed caused wars and destruction: “Sorrowing and killing animals is a blasphemy against humanity. Animals’ existence, their arrival on earth, their play and joy, their suffering, their main compassion, their fear of death, the desires that awaken in their bodies, their death and fate, are all similar to that of man.”
He concludes the last words of his review, written about 100 years ago, which shed light on today’s debate: “If one day human beings reach the peak of their evolution, it will be with herbal foods in a natural environment.. However, his eating of meat and artificial civilization have fascinated him and driven him to the abyss of extinction. If a new generation, healthy and living according to the laws of nature, does not take its place, the human lineage will be disgracefully lost!”
It seems that Sadik Hidayet’s writings are also reflected in today’s world. Who knows, maybe the struggle for rights in the coming years will be based on animals, not people.
