. I love nothing more than an animal product. But even I am sometimes lured, out of pervasive social conditioning, by the promise of a vegan brownie, or some such. I find myself thinking: it must be healthy and good for everyone, because it's vegan. The delusion doesn't last long: the first bite, and the slight bloating that follows, is a swift reminder that often the vegan sell is pure rubbish: instead of wholesome things like cream and butter, there's just more sugar and chemicals. Ditto other vegan recipes, which include non-nutritious, fattening things like pasta and chips. This, we are told, is good for the planet – of which more later – but it's very bad for human health. Last week provided a sobering, and tragic, case of what happens when vegan ideology is pursued to an extreme. Zhanna Samsonova, a Russian 'raw vegan' influencer, appears to have died of malnourishment in Malaysia, after many years of only eating fruits and vegetables, and more recently, only jackfruit and durians. Reportedly, she hadn't drunk water in six years, subsisting on vegetable and fruit juice. She seems to have literally faded away in gruesome circumstances. 'Ms Samsonova's idle starvation was causing her to melt before our eyes, but she believed everything was fine,' a friend told a Russian news outlet. 'Only her eyes, merry eyes, and gorgeous hair compensated for the dreadful sight of a body tortured by idiocy.' The tragedy of Ms Samsonova's grisly death by diet trend should serve as a wider warning of the harm caused by fads that pretend to be virtuous. That's unlikely to happen, though. As the world gets more obsessed by greenism and seduced by claims of eco-friendliness, veganism has grown and grown. The meat-free market in Britain is worth more than £9 billion; the largest in Europe. In 2014, just one per cent of Americans said they were vegan; by 2020){kind=link}
The death of a young influencer provides a sobering, and tragic, case of what happens when ideology is pursued to extremes
Over the course of the past week I’ve eaten clams, eggs, lobster, butter, cheese and steak, among other things (I’m in America). I love nothing more than an animal product. But even I am sometimes lured, out of pervasive social conditioning, by the promise of a vegan brownie, or some such. I find myself thinking: it must be healthy and good for everyone, because it’s vegan. The delusion doesn’t last long: the first bite, and the slight bloating that follows, is a swift reminder that often the vegan sell is pure rubbish: instead of wholesome things like cream and butter, there’s just more sugar and chemicals. Ditto other vegan recipes, which include non-nutritious, fattening things like pasta and chips. This, we are told, is good for the planet – of which more later – but it’s very bad for human health.
Last week provided a sobering, and tragic, case of what happens when vegan ideology is pursued to an extreme. Zhanna Samsonova, a Russian “raw vegan” influencer, appears to have died of malnourishment in Malaysia, after many years of only eating fruits and vegetables, and more recently, only jackfruit and durians. Reportedly, she hadn’t drunk water in six years, subsisting on vegetable and fruit juice. She seems to have literally faded away in gruesome circumstances. “Ms Samsonova’s idle starvation was causing her to melt before our eyes, but she believed everything was fine,” a friend told a Russian news outlet. “Only her eyes, merry eyes, and gorgeous hair compensated for the dreadful sight of a body tortured by idiocy.”
The tragedy of Ms Samsonova’s grisly death by diet trend should serve as a wider warning of the harm caused by fads that pretend to be virtuous. That’s unlikely to happen, though. As the world gets more obsessed by greenism and seduced by claims of eco-friendliness, veganism has grown and grown. The meat-free market in Britain is worth more than £9 billion; the largest in Europe. In 2014, just one per cent of Americans said they were vegan; by 2020, that number was 6 per cent; a 500 per cent leap.
Vegans have two motivations: preventing animal cruelty and reducing carbon emissions. The latter in particular expresses itself in obsessive, authoritarian ways. Earlier this year, the Cambridge student union, responding to the “climate and biodiversity crises”, voted to rid all its canteens and cafes of animal products. Lovely buttery scones and cheese and ham paninis out: lentil gruel, sugary, greasy brownies, and chemical-rich tofu in.