Why are many vegans so blasé when it comes to alcohol?
It's a phenomenon that affects all drinks but alcoholic in particular - many vegans (including those who view themselves as being very strict) not only are not as rigerous about the alcohol they consume themselves as their are about food but will pass advice to others on the subject. There is no such thing as completely vegan - everyone decides their own level and that's cool - it's part of life, but making recommendations based on your own level of acceptance isn't. Personally if someone says something is vegan online then I do my own research, but I know a lot of people are too lazy to do so and just beleive what they read.
I sufferred from this myself when I first turned vegan, only paying attention to beer but not turning down glasses of wine or spirits. Thankfully in recent years I've applied the same tollerance that I do to food. It's hypocritical to pay so much attention to limitting animal use in certain parts of life then completely ignore others - particularly when we're talking about luxury items which aren't even good for you.
There's a lot of misleading information available both in print (such as the vegan society's infamous piece of completely useless info 'most spirits are vegan') and online (such as outdated country specific lists) which often gets rehashed in 'is xxxx vegan' threads. The word 'most' is finite not infinite - most bread in the UK is vegan but there's plenty which isn't. Are people just overly optomistic about their favourite things?
It's a fact that many alcoholic drinks are produced under license in different countries by different companies. Recipes are closely guarded by many manufacturers and not divulged beyond what is required by the law under which they operate. They also change dependant on location due to factors such as availability and cost of raw materials. One beer in the UK may not be made by either the same ingredients (be they vegen/vegetarian/non vegetarian - fairtrade or non fairtrade) or manufacturing technique. The company that makes it under license may have really dodgy business practices and produce other products which are definitely at odds with vegan principles.
Then there is the problem of out of date info. You wouldn't take notice of the 2001 edition of the animal free shopper, so why trust a website which has no date by each piece of evidence? Because most alcoholic drinks (in the UK at least) do not have ingredients lists you have no notification of when ingredients change. 2 year old information is nothing more than a guideline.
I've bought these issues up in threads on this forum about alcohol in the past but they're often not addressed or even read, so I thought it was time it had it's own thread. I've lost track of the number of times I've read online over the last 6 years people who have replied "yes it is" and not offerred anything in way of evidence.
I enjoy drinking, i attended a debate last week on the pros and cons of drinking in terms of it's affect on our lives and I personally think it's up to individuals how much and how regularly they consume, but just as being an alcoholic affects those you live with drinking in moderation products which contain or have been tested on animals and recommending them to others is not cool. Thankfully lots of varieties of vegan alcohol are out there if sufficient digging is done.
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) i.e. Newcastle Brown definitely isn't vegetarian and one vegetarian I know (who even has the ALF logo on his Myspace page) drinks it!
is enough to make me make sure I'd go with the vegan versions.
tabitha
Does this mean I will have to get the taxi home and drink vodka in the pub?? (not Smirnoff). I may as well take a flask with me in a brown paper bag and look like a proper alcy. *resolves NEVER to go to pub again*.
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