Why it's Okay to be Vegan and Miss Eggs

by Laura Maria Grierson

Welcome to Veganuary, folks - ­a movement so ubiquitous right now that we might as well do away with the word 'January' and rename the first month of the year in homage to all things plant­-based. Whether you're giving Veganuary a go, have been vegan a while, or are trying to cut back on your intake of animal products, this month is a great time for getting some extra info, connecting with other vegans, or simply grabbing some great deals at local restaurants. (Or watching a publicity­hungry dolt descend into a tantrum like an attention­ seeking three­ year­ old because Greggs decided to launch a vegan sausage roll alongside its traditional offering.)

I was a vegetarian for almost eighteen years, and I loved eggs. Whenever the subject of going vegan is broached, cheese always seems to be the one product that people feel they can't live without, but I was never a big fan of it, especially since I'd started gradually cutting it out of my diet for a couple of years before I went vegan. For me, it was always eggs. Boiled, fried, or poached: I loved 'em. Ironically, it's really easy to create vegan versions of scrambled eggs, quiche, omelette etc., which were all things I'd never particularly liked in the first place. Something that looked and tasted like a real, whole chicken's egg was elusive.

But I didn't mind. Knowing what went into producing that egg made giving them up an easy sacrifice. But the thing with the egg industry ­- just like all other forms of animal agriculture - ­is that there's no indication of what had to happen to create that egg. The boxes might show photographs of heathy hens on lush green pastures, even when there's little chance of the hens those eggs came from setting foot outside. And the fate of the male chicks that had to be culled is obviously absent from any marketing campaigns. In fact, tiny stray feathers are often the only indication that these eggs were stolen from their imprisoned female counterparts.

When I looked at the eggs in the family fridge, I didn't see a scrawny hen half­ bald with stress, and I didn't see the gassed bodies of newly ­born chicks. I saw the food that my mother prepared for me with toast as a special treat. I saw the main ingredient in a sandwich I'd learnt to cook as a teenager. I saw memories of holidays in the Scottish Highlands where we’d collect eggs from free­ roaming chickens.

And that's okay. Our food experiences are often tied to our cultures, our families, and our memories. And they taste good: that's at the crux of why we like to eat animal products, and admitting that isn't "failing" as a vegan - ­it just means that, a) we're not in denial, and b) we appreciate ethics (or health or the environment or whatever other reason you went vegan) more than our tastebuds.

The same is true for bacon or fried chicken or margherita pizza or anything at all that contains an animal product. The overwhelming majority of vegans didn't give up animal foods because they happen to dislike the taste of all dairy, eggs, and meat, so craving them is perfectly normal.

If you were to read some social media comments on posts that show animal foods replicated in vegan form, you'd probably see your fair share of users questioning why vegans want to eat things that look and taste like meat. The truth is, they want vegans and those considering a vegan diet to feel alienated. That if they don't conform to their expectations of what vegan means, they're not doing it right and might as well give up and return to eating animal products.

There's no confusion. A shrimp made out of soya, coloured with beta-­carotene and flavoured with seaweed, is not a crustacean, any more than a cake made to look like a dog is a real dog. Maybe (hopefully) people don't want to eat a real dog, but they have no problem with eating a cake shaped like one. And a hunk of microprotein shaped like a shrimp is not the same as decapitating living creatures and overfishing the ocean.

A couple of years after I went vegan, I returned to that same Scottish holiday where the chickens were poster­ children for how we think they should be treated. They had acres to wander, they played with the ducks and bullied the dogs, and I felt that if humans wanted to eat those leftover chicken periods then it wasn't that big a deal. I wasn't eating commercial eggs, either on their own or as an ingredient, and I felt that if the positions were reversed and a chicken wanted to chomp down on a discarded tampon then it wouldn't have much effect on me.

But, deep down, I knew that those eggs weren't mine to take. I didn't know what the landowner would do with those chickens once they were no longer laying, if they were slaughtered for guests, personal consumption or sale, or how he was able to prevent the rooster from fertilising those eggs (and if you really want to be put off eggs, imagine that bloodspot as a miniscule chicken foetus and that'll do the trick). I had food in the house to eat: I didn't need to take from another animal. And, selfishly, a part of me worried that if I ate those eggs, all those fond memories would come rushing back and I might be tempted to eat more.

So in the end, I didn't eat them, but remembering that they tasted good and wishing for a realistic vegan replacement is not a failing. It's our actions in funding these horrific industries that make all the difference, not our hankering for an egg sandwich. SM

About the writer

Laura Maria Grierson is a writer and editor from Middlesbrough, North­East England. She creates business content for a range of industries, edits both fiction and non­fiction, and her poetry and short stories have been published in UK anthologies.