I am not a vegetarian. I am not a vegan. But today, for lunch, I bought a cup of beef chili and a completely luscious-looking vegan peach muffin, and it felt so right.
This got me thinking about the mainstreaming of vegan products in America. Vegan lifestyles are not just for dietary radicals, paint-slinging PETA activists or people who live in California anymore. I may have bought my chili-muffin duo at the Concord Co-op, a business with a clearly “green” focus, but other businesses on our Main Street sell products regularly that, per vegan definition, contain no animal products of any kind and are not tested in any way on animals.
One of my recent delightful discoveries was nail polish from SpaRitual at Lotions 'n Potions. I'd been on the lookout for the perfect turquoisey-blue shade, and I popped into Lotions 'n Potions on a completely different mission when I discovered it right there. (For those who wonder, it was the “Crystal Waters” shade of blue and looks like something from the scales on a mermaid's tail. Aye caramba! Highly recommend.) I saw that it was “vegan” and asked Lotions 'n Potions owner Andrew Hatch what, exactly, made this product vegan. Though I am not a vegetarian eater, I prefer to buy cosmetic products that are not tested on animals. Some companies will put a symbol or wording on the packaging to tell you that a product is “cruelty-free,” but I wanted to know the reason.
In addition to being formaldehyde, formaldehyde-resin, toluene and DBA-free (these being a variety of toxic plasticisers, solvents and generally unhealthy ingredients that in modern history are common nail polish ingredients), they do not contain, for example, fish scales. That's right, fish scales. Who knew? Fish scales make things shiny – next time you put on a pearlescent color you might wonder what made it so fancy.
Aside from the color, that's what I liked about the product: I didn't have to wonder. As a consumer, I feel I have a right to know what is in a product, so that I can make informed decisions. I don't like doing business with companies that can't tell me how and why they do what they do. This isn't a vegan issue; this is a consumer issue and I appreciated the information and the choice it placed in my hands.
After that informative trip to Lotions 'n Potions, I stopped in at Dos Amigos and ordered a steak burrito. Also on the menu, however, are a great selection of vegetarian options, and vegan ones as well. I've heard that the vegan chili is delicious, and ingredients like spinach and sweet potato in the easily customizable burritos also rank high on the lists of great downtown eats for my vegetarian and vegan friends. In my actual vegetarian days, back in high school, I would have loved these options. In the community I grew up in, at that point in time, vegetarian and vegan options were extremely limited.
Elyssa Paris, a familiar face in downtown Concord as the manager of Zoe & Co. goes so far as to say that Concord is the most vegan-friendly community she's ever been in. Her explanation was not just about the presence of vegan options alongside traditional options, but about local attitudes toward vegan customers. She cited Lotions and Potions, Bona Fide Green Goods, Cafe Indigo, the Co-op, Rasa's and Zoe & Co. (ask any sales person there to point out the vegan soaps!) as businesses that she enjoys shopping at, and at which the attitude toward vegan-consumers is just as friendly as it is toward non-vegan customers. She also has an appreciation for the many businesses downtown that are not necessarily “vegan” or “green” businesses, but that simply provide excellent customer service. Their employees do not behave strangely toward customers who may have polite questions about some of the ingredients and preparation of foods or products. Angelina's is one such business at which she's had a vegan-positive customer service experience.
Paris is not a Concord resident but enjoys working here because she feels comfortable and accepted in our community. That says a great thing about our city: We are willing to accept differences in viewpoint as a part of our downtown community. That's an important element to remember and to celebrate, with so many recent issues driving people to factionalize, demonize and separate themselves from the “other.”
It's a big conclusion for a bottle of nail-polish and a vegan muffin to bear. . . but they are potent symbols of something better afoot in our community.
