"Butter, butter, I love butter." I can hear Ackroyd's falsetto as he impersonates Julia Child on SNL to this date. I remember vividly the days of Jon Vie bakery, where you walked in and the aroma of butter-drenched pastries slapped you in the face, wrenched open your jaw, and forced your tongue to almost fellate a stick thereof. Alas, Jon Vie is long-shuttered (and we the poorer for it).
I can't have butter. I can't have a hot fudge sundae. I can't have animal fats of any sorts. You see, I am on an anti-reflux diet. Which is practically vegan. Except for some more additions--no berries, no grapes, no citrus.
I hate all things vegan. I don't like quinoa. I don't like lentils. I despise tofu and all things soy. Oatmilk gives me the stomach-willies.
I accept not eating meat. I have long bemoaned the state of animal husbandry i this nation. Cows forced to graze on comestables unnatural to their diet, penned most of the day. Chickens--really, does anyone eat American chickens? Free-range doesn't mean what you think. Nor does cage-free. They all live a Hobbesian life. Unless you go to chicken and egg Farmer Larry, the conditions make are unnatural. My mother's mother went Friday morning to the local poulterer, picked out a chicken, he killed it kosher, and she plucked the feathers. He removed the organs and placed them in a bag for her convenience. And this was Brooklyn in the 1940's. No one went to the local supermarket and picked a few parts, wrapped in plastic and laid out on a celluloid bed. Before it was laid out, it was dipped in a chemical solution.
Even kosher chickens are raised in the same perilous fashion. Kosher slaughterers are all part of the meatpacking industry. Tyson, Perdue, all the biggies have kosher units. Hebrew National is part of another meat conglomerate.
Even if you don't care about the cows--care about the workers. Undocumented, under-aged, off school, sometimes homeless.
Vegan eating also does not give anyone a right to virtue crow. Crops are picked by the same under-aged, off school, sometimes homeless workers.
Whatever you eat, unless you have a home garden, eating means mistreating. It is a Hobbesian life for all.
Although I must admit, since I went on the low-reflux diet, I sneeze 60% less each day. I have that much less mucal discharge and post-nasal drip. And I still want a hot-fudge sundae with real ice cream and real hot fudge and real whipped cream.