Here at VeganValued, our mission is to spotlight cuisines from cultures that are traditionally vegan, but are often overlooked in modern veganism. Veganism’s origins come from indigenous people of color in Asia, and yet, like so many other things, the current vegan movement has been overtaken by white supremacy. As environmentally-conscious women of color, we enjoy looking for vegan recipes on social media, but we often come up short when trying to find authentic new recipes from our own cultures. And, even when we do find a recipe that might seem authentic, it’s usually from a white influencer. In fact, the vegans with the largest followings on social media, who are offered the most sponsorships and deals, are overwhelmingly white.
We find it unfortunate that the vegan movement is mostly centered around European and white American diets, even though hundreds of cultures around the world have been making “vegan” dishes and following vegan/vegetarian diets for centuries. When it comes to modern cultures that don’t eat meat, some of the oldest and most influential examples come from India, which introduced Buddhism and Jainism––religions that went on to influence vegan diets in the rest of Asia, as well as Europe. Yet, in much of the online world, the extensive history of veganism throughout the world is whittled down into white girls with their acai bowls, while leaving the rich, indigenous Brazilian culture behind the bowls unsaid.
The danger of this is that white veganism overlooks the colonial legacies of meat and dairy production and shifts the same systems onto the industrialization of plants. Millions try to create a more sustainable lifestyle by cutting out animal products, but are ignorant to the horrific human rights violations occurring in plant agriculture, the cultural sensitivities surrounding meat consumption, and the capitalist systems which led to unethical farming practices in the first place.