Vintage Veg
‘Radical Vegetarianism’ Is Everything Veganism Shouldn’t Be
The 1981 book argues for a fanatical, essentialist, white veganism that the movement has thankfully started to move past
“Do you perceive the veal floating invisibly inside every glass of milk?” asks Mark Mathew Braunstein in the preface to the revised 1993 edition of his 1981 book Radical Vegetarianism:
A dairy cow is not killed immediately, but condemning her to cruel conditions might be worse than saving her skin. Meanwhile her calf, briefly confined, is killed. The dairy barn adjoins the veal crate. Dairy Queen is merged in discorporate partnership with Burger King. Every cup of milk is appetizer to a meal of veal. If your lips are white with milk, your hands are red with blood.
Braunstein goes on like that not just in the preface but throughout this slim volume that argues for the absolute necessity of veganism. Radical vegetarianism, in his view, is not just fruits and vegetables, “but life and death.” He advocates, without much compassion for anyone who might require or enjoy differently, a raw food diet.
In reading this book, we see how a lot of stereotypes about vegans came to emerge…
