vegan columbus: vegan living in central ohio

So for the last few months I was a poster over at veganfreaks. For those not familiar, it's the website of the authors of the book Vegan Freak: Being Vegan in a Non-Vegan World. Which is kind of a mediocre book that doesn't contain much you haven't heard before, except maybe the author confessing to eating meat when he was a "vegetarian", and having made some really dumb excuses for not going vegan. Which a lot of us have done anyway, so maybe that isn't even interesting.

The Book

The book was ok, but the section on sex toys, which was much hyped in the description I read on veganfreak.com, was short and not very interesting. The free excerpts contain most of the compelling content, including logical arguments for respecting the rights of sentient creatures. I highly recommend those particular excerpts, actually. The rest of the book seemed kind of like filler. I would elaborate as to why, except I can't really remember much in the way of details.

The Forum

Long story short, you might want to avoid that website and save yourself the cash of buying their book, and try the less strident PPK forums and books instead.

Of course if you like revelling in your superior vegan cred to other, less "pure*" vegans then veganfreak forums may be the place for you. And actually there are some nice people there, some useful information, and some fun discussions. But in my opinion, it's not worth the headache of actually passing the inquisition to get in.

It's meant to be a safe space for vegans, but in making sure that no non-vegans get in and start asking dumb "your child or the dog" questions, they're also driving away legit vegans who care about the same things they do. It's a shame because a lot of the people there are quite knowlegeable and friendly. And to its credit, it's a great place to find out about, say, a good vegan brand of watercolor paints, or to have a discussion about the specific definition of direct action in activism.

Some Whining

I wasted about $23 (which is more than the cover price, but I wanted to get it from someplace local and that's what it was selling for at the store I went to.) on the Vegan Freak book and $10 subscribing to their podcast** (which you can get 20 episodes of for free anyway, but I felt like a mooch so I paid). That's enough to buy Veganomicon AND Vegan with a Vengeance, if you find them secondhand.

/2¢

*Ok, the juicy gossip: I am referring here to the fact that I got ousted for not having the foresight to hide the fact that for the first month of becoming vegan, I continued to eat the cheese I bought before I went vegan, and I was imprecise about the timeline in a poorly-thought-through post. Attempts to correct the timeline were met with ridicule, and the moderator seems to have assumed I was lying when I amended my post to clarify that I only ate cheese when I was first transitioning.

** They refunded this to me unsolicited after I wrote this post.