if i told you that a brand new restaurant had opened in london called bad vegan what sort of food do you think that you could get there probably vegan junk food right but this is where it gets really confusing because whilst you can get vegan junk food at bad vegan you can also get things like beef brisket salami and bacon and no unfortunately i don't mean the plant-based alternatives i mean actual beef brisket salami and bacon as in animal flesh because according to bad vegan a bad vegan is someone who eats meat now the concept of an establishment serving both vegan and non-vegan options is hardly controversial or new but what's different about bad vegan is how they market and promote themselves in their own words they say traditional restaurants offer vegan alternatives we've flipped it and offer non-vegan alternatives and if you go on their website to sign up to their newsletter it says become a badass vegan but what exactly does this mean does being a badass vegan mean choosing to add meat to what would otherwise have been a vegan meal now i wouldn't normally make a video about a topic such as this one but what i think is interesting about the case of bad vegan is how it represents a broader and wider problem which is the dilution of veganism and what i mean by that is the dilution of the true meaning behind being a vegan now being a vegan means taking a philosophical and ethical position we try to as far as is possible and practicable reduce the use and exploitation of animals however bad vegan and others who have a similar mentality to bad vegan are viewing veganism as being a diet something that you can do badly it's almost like you have a cheat day when you're on your diet well they're saying you can have meat and still call yourself a vegan because being a vegan just means you know eating more plants they've completely missed the point of what being a vegan is and this is what i mean by the dilution of veganism the conflation of being a vegan with just eating a plant-based diet now the thing is food is just a symptom of the problem absolutely when we look at the exploitation of animals the vast majority of the exploitation takes place for food but food is a symptom of the problem the problem is our mentality the problem is the fact that we normalize and perpetuate the exploitation of animals in all the different ways that we do that's the issue is when we conflate veganism we've just been about food we ignore the true ethical meaning behind being a vegan which is really acknowledging and challenging that speciesist mindset that allows exploitation to happen in any form and when we acknowledge veganism as being a philosophical belief system we realize very quickly how arbitrary and nonsensical it is to say that you can be a bad vegan by adding meat to a vegan meal now before i move on to talking more about bad vegan and more about this idea i just want to say a huge thank you to today's sponsor which is skillshare now skillshare is an online learning community which is curated specifically for learning there are thousands of different courses about a wide variety of different subjects which is perfect if you're looking to take up a new skill learn a new hobby or expand on an existing skill set now a course that i would recommend is called
START_SPONSOR_TOKEN just want to say a huge thank you to today's sponsor which is skillshare now skillshare is an online learning community which is curated specifically for learning there are thousands of different courses about a wide variety of different subjects which is perfect if you're looking to take up a new skill learn a new hobby or expand on an existing skill set now a course that i would recommend is called END_SPONSOR_TOKEN