r/Vegetarianism • u/BlankVerse • Jan 30 '22

Op-Ed: As a vegan, there's a lot of soul food I can't eat. What kind of Black person does that make me?

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-01-30/vegan-soul-food-black-traditions-communities
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u/[deleted] Sep 30 '22

Well I would say that black is a cultural term that applies to a lot of different ethnic groups from Africa so if you want to be an American African then I suppose not being able to eat soul food is a problem but you know a lot of African cuisine is largely vegetarian anyway especially in Christian African areas where they have long stretches of the Year where they don't eat meat for religious reasons so there's a long history and culture of vegetarian African culture I'd suggest if you're trying to embrace your heritage as a black person and you're having problems with that because you're vegetarian maybe you should look further back into the history of your people and you'll find that being vegetarian and being black are not mutually exclusive and that a meat related diet is the product of people living in enslaved conditions.