Vegan Food & Euphemisms At The Farmers Market

Since I’m boarding a plane to Ireland the day after tomorrow to deliver a speech in Dublin, I am in serious crunch time mode!  So I thought I’d show you around my local Farmers Market, since I rarely do the vlog-ish style of videos outside of my Patreon page. [And, it seems, speech-induced crunch time.] [Note: This post is more or less a straight transcript of the market tour, so there will be references to what’s onscreen that do not translate well in the written form. I’m including it for the sake of resources links and text to speech.]

This market has some really beautiful local produce and—like most markets and community agriculture movements—some wholesome homegrown local cruelty. So let’s look around.

This farm always has a wide selection and this week they even had melons. One of my long-term goals is to grow all of my own food. Taking our food back into our own hands has power on so many levels, not just financially. It can profoundly lower our environmental impact, increase the nutrient content of our produce, and help us reconnect with our food.

These are local-grown apples that they’ll juice on the spot.

So this is pretty cool. This gentleman makes soap with the mushrooms he grows. It’s totally vegan and the sign was so fantastic that I had to get a bar…and some tasty tomatoes. I love just eating these like snack food. Well, they are snack food.

This stall always has vegan options. They have chocolate vegan cookies too but I was not about to violate people’s personal space with my vlogging. Is that like a “vlogssault”? A “vlogilation”? Anyways.

This booth has made-to-order pizzas and I’d never really given it a look before but they have fully vegan options with Daiya cheese and even vegan pesto. So I figured I’d see what its like. While we’re waiting this is my order from the co-op today. A big box of grapes. You can check out my car-free grocery haul to see more of how I make things work with a bike and buy produce in bulk to save money.

And no farmers market is complete without some delightfully charming euphemisms. This is the second town I’ve lived in that has a relatively strong interest in where their food comes from and making sustainable, responsible choices. Unfortunately, by and large, I find that in undertaking this journey—which is commendable—most people stall out after entering the warm embrace of the humane myth.

These concepts of pasture raised, grass-fed, local, organic, happy animals provide us with the perfect solution to any unrest about our actions. It’s the holy grail of human hypocrisy: we get to keep eating exactly what and whom we want without the guilt—possibly even with some pride in our conscientious ethical earth-friendly choices.

I’m not trying to be the vegan wet blanket. But if we really want to be responsible with our choices, we have to fully inform ourselves. And it is much harder understanding the exploitation inherent in these friendly booths than it is when seeing an undercover video from a factory farm. Which is why it’s so vital to educate about the humane myth.

I’ve included some videos in the description to get you started, but let’s pull out of the vegan buzz kill spiral and check out some pizza! If you didn’t already leave, that is…

Oh! And I took the opportunity to drop back by for a vegan cookie shot. There you are.

So we’ve got Daiya cheese, onion, sweet corn, marinara and pesto!

I think I just won vlogging.

Alright well I’m going to get back to some serious speech work. Let me know your thoughts in the comments and thank you for your patience with my near total retreat from society during this push. I always just want to be as effective as I can with my speeches, especially when I’m given such incredible opportunities to educate.

You can check out the rest of my speeches so far linked in the sidebar and below. By the way, the Extremism speech – both the censored version and the repost – have made it over 100,000 views. Thank you so much to all of you who have watched and shared to get that information out

If you like the informalness you can always join us in the Nugget Army to help support ongoing free education. And check out the description for video resources about the humane myth, growing your own food, and help finding fresh produce in your area.

Thank you so much for watching, and all of your support throughout this journey. Please keep sharing the videos around to help others find free vegan info! Now go live vegan and I’ll see you in Dublin. Or England. Or here on YouTube. And maybe. One day. Twitter.

— Emily Moran Barwick