Hey, modern vegans, it's Margaret. And
today I want to talk with you about
watching Anthony Bourdain's Parts
Unknown as a vegan
So I've been a fan of an inconvenience
for years, and I really enjoy his
journalistic approach. He's one of my
favorite journalists - food journalists
and I've always enjoyed watching him. But
I haven't watched him for quite a while,
and I don't know if that's directly
because I became vegan if it's been
something that I've been sort of
turning around in my mind - I haven't been
watching him as much as I used to.
I just haven't watched him in about a
year, and so the other day my family and
I sat down, and of course we're all
vegans now. We sat down to watch Parts
Unknown - Anthony Bourdain's series that he
has on CNN. Now, Anthony Bourdain is
known for a particular type of
journalism. It's almost like a Trojan
horse sort of journalism where use
food as a way to get into a culture, to
understand people and to connect with
them in a different way. And it's always
a very interesting experience for the
viewer. But it becomes especially
interesting and different when you are
vegan and you're watching his program.
If you are vegan and you know about
Anthony Bourdain at all, you probably are
aware of his disdain for vegans. He has
made it no secret that he can't stand
vegans. But I still enjoy watching him,
or at least I thought I would. So I sat
down to watch this program the other
night with my family. So my husband, my
oldest daughter and I were sitting down
and watching Parts Unknown. This
particular episode was in Chengdu, China.
So, Chengdu is on the mainland of China in the
Szechuan province. Bourdain is known for
connecting with locals through the food
and the alcohol that they consume. Aside
from his rather surprising ability to
drink a whole lot of alcohol,
he also eats a lot of foods that most of
us might regard is rather disgusting -
particularly in the West, and
particularly in North America. So it
challenges a lot of our culinary
presuppositions, and I would say this is a bit
different for the general public than it
is for vegans, because frequently the
foods that he's eating that are rather
disgusting are animal foods. And one of
the things I thought was interesting
last night is that everyone in our
family had kind of a disgust response to
his food. And I did not use to have this
problem when I watched Anthony Bourdain.
I have to say that for years - I have kind
of a like a high threshold for disgust
and
Very little used to bother me. But I
did find that this time it was
completely different. In the past,
there's probably not much I could have
seen that would have really grossed me
out. And that's partly because one of
the things that I really appreciate
about Anthony Bourdain is that he's
always reminding his viewers that it's
good to eat all the parts of the animal,
that we don't want to be wasting things.
So that's something that I actually
respect. And it's
something that I want to sit down and
talk with vegetarians and vegans - I think
that sometimes we make the mistake of
making this dividing line - like you know,
it's gross that people eat chicken
breasts, but it's so much more gross if
we see people eating bull's testicles, you
know things like that.
Those things might seem disgusting
to us, but is it any worse to eat, say a
fetal pickled egg - that's something that
Anthony Bourdain has eaten on his program -
is it so much worse to eat that than it
is to eat chicken breast, or to eat, you
know, or a chicken thigh, or anything else?
No. You're killing an animal
either way. And honestly, the animal
doesn't care what part of it you're
eating. It's dead, and you've already done
harm. So please don't report me for child
abuse, we didn't know
what was coming. But as we were watching
this particular episode, Anthony
Bourdain was traveling with his friend,
who happens to be a Buddhist they went
to a large statue of the Buddha that was
on the river and it was was really tall -
80 feet tall or something
like that. It's apparently one of the
largest statues of Buddha - it IS the
largest statue of Buddha that's been
carved out of stone. And they went to go
see this religious Buddhist Monument, and
then afterwards they went and found a
street vendor who was selling bunny
heads that had been fried. They were
spicy, spicy, deep-fried Bunny heads. And as
they were sitting down to eat this - and
was kind of interesting because Anthony
Bourdain's friend is a Buddhist, and
apparently rather devout, but he still
eats animals. And they were sitting
down to eat this meal of bunny heads, and
Anthony Bourdain was kind of creepily
singing Peter Cottontail - sorry if this
is gonna upset any of you guys. Like I
said, I have a pretty high tolerance for
grossness, but he was singing like Peter
Cottontail and then eating these bunny
heads, and talking about how - you know he was
kind of joking - or since we're talking
about Anthony Bourdain,
I don't really know if he was joking
or not - about serving this for Easter, and
cracking open the heads of these bunnies
and sucking their brains out. It was
pretty disgusting and I have to give
credit to my daughter because -don't
report me for child abuse for her
watching this show - but she turned to me
and she's like "you know, meat people eat
really disgusting things." And it's funny,
my daughter for some reason - I don't call
people who eat meat "meat people" but my
daughter does. And so it's kind of her
way of calling someone a carnist is to
call them a "meat person." And she'll call them
"meat people".
"Oh, you know, so-and-so is a meat person."
Or, "you know they're meat people."
It's just funny. That's the way she
describes it. But I'm - I just thought it
was interesting, because she's kind of
right. If you eat animals, you're gonna be
eating disgusting things. And it's
interesting that we don't perceive all
foods to be disgusting. I must say, as a
vegan, even watching you know, the
occasional commercial that I'll see for
Taco Bell or something - I find that
rather disgusting. I must say that
billboards where there's pictures of me -
I just feel like it's omnipresent. But
this was particularly disturbing. And one
of the things my husband thought was
rather disturbing was the fact that when
you're looking, it really brings it to a
whole new level when you're looking at a
place like China and when they were
discussing the food, and you're seeing
them prepare some of this food, you're
thinking about all of the millions of
the people there. How many animals have
to die in order to feed all these people?
And even though the Chinese eat quite a
bit less meat then we do here in North
America, they still have to kill millions
and millions of animals to be able to
feed the billions of people that are in
China. And it was it was very interesting
to see that. And to see something that
you know, while we may be inundated with
commercials for fast-food restaurants
and for steak houses and things like
that -
pictures in magazines of steak and
things - it's quite different to be seeing
some of the things that you will see in
a show like Parts Unknown.
I know for many of you that watching
something like that would be too
disturbing. And I know even for some meat
eaters they don't like watching it. But I
do think that it's important to remind
ourselves what it means to eat animals.
To really to really challenge yourself
to take a look at what it means. Because
when people are eating you know - like I
said - fetal duck eggs - so those are
like, you know, the baby duck is still
inside the egg when they decide to
ferment and eat it. It's
pretty gross, but that's something that
they people eat, and you know
that he was also sitting down to a hot
pot filled with tripe or intestine and there were
brains and - again my daughter was like
"yeah, you know, meat people eat really gross
things.That's gross.
you know I'm glad I'm not a meat person."
And I'm glad I'm not a meat person, too.
Because it is pretty gross. And it's
interesting that in our society here, we
sanitize meat and death so much - the
death of animals - that we don't really
see that aspect of it. And I don't know
if that's necessarily a bad thing, but it
does keep us from having to
be more aware of what we're seeing.
And so, especially as a sensitized
Western person who is actually vegan,
watching some of those things is I think
kind of helpful, because it really
reminds you of what meat eating really is.
Because I think in a place like this you
don't have to face it in exactly the
same way. We saw another episode of
Anthony Bourdain a little bit later, and
it was an episode where he was in London,
and he was speaking with a friend who's
a chef, and they were walking through
this pastoral garden - because
this chef, he's from London, but he lives
now in in a county outside in a very
rural area where it's very beautiful. And
they have a farm, and of course they have,
you know, all their organic free-range
animals. But as he was walking through, he
had some pigs. They were these -
you may have seen them before - they're
these tan and black pigs. They're just
beautiful, and the chef was standing
there. Ee was talking about how these
pigs -
they recognize your voice, that they
all have distinct personalities and all
these other things. And then he paused for a
minute, and then you said "in four months,
they're bacon."
Just matter-of-factly. Because that's
the way that we see the world. And I
don't think that the person who eats
brains in China sees that any
differently than that guy does. It's just
what you do.
People see it as something that you just
do. That it's a fact of life, and it's
something that we need to come to terms
with and accept. At least this is the
overall view I think of society about
animal products. They're something that
people believe we need, or that we are
free to enjoy. And you just do it. And you
don't think about it very much, and one
of the things that I've really
appreciated about being vegan is the
chance to think about those things a
little more in a different context. The
fact that i don't see those things that
way any more. That I'm allowed to have
empathy for other animals, that I can
feel horrible when I see a chicken
getting its head cut off, that I can feel
terrible when I see a fish getting its
head cut off - and it just causes you
to see things in a slightly different
way. And i hope that all of you will take
occasion to sometimes remind yourself of
what the overall society's approach to
this is. And it's no more necessary for
human beings to drink milk than it is
for them to eat rabbit bunny heads. Like,
bunny heads are no more...obviously we
think of that as being unnecessary and
disgusting, but it's just as unnecessary
and disgusting to be eating any animal
product. And I think that was the real
message that I took away.
I appreciate Anthony Bourdain for at
least being honest in his meat-eating. I
appreciate that he doesn't sugarcoat it,
that when he eats those things and he's
as heartless as he is, you know, with his
mocking tone about Peter Cottontail and
joking about serving those things for
Easter dinner -
it's not any more offensive really when
you get right down to it than people's
everyday behavior. It's not any more
disgusting than having a ham for
Easter! It isn't. We try to think that it
is, but it's not. And we have made
ourselves accustomed to those things and
because we are accustomed to them, they
are
normal. We are shocked by those other
things because that's not normal.
But the ham on  a plate at Easter is
every bit as disturbing, and it SHOULD be
every bit as disturbing to you as the
bunny hand. And yeah, I think that's it
for today. I just want you guys to think
about that a bit if you would. I know
that for sensitive people it can be
sometimes hard to talk about these
things, but again I think it's something
that we need to be honest with ourselves
about, and remind ourselves whenever we
see that innocent-looking
chicken breast that's cooked, or a steak
or anything else - that it's is absolutely
no different from eating the brains of
some animal, or eating eating a bunny's
head. It's nothing different. It's just
optics. I hope you enjoyed this video.
Thank you so much for joining me, and I
will see you soon. If you like this video,
please give it a thumbs up. Please
subscribe, and I will see you in my next
video. Take care, bye!
