The Paleo label, veganism, wealth, and race. - PaleoHacks.com

The Paleo label, veganism, wealth, and race.

2012-06-26T11:19:29Z

Where does the paleo diet stand on a social standpoint?

Diets, such as veganism, are connotated with higher socioeconomic class, which is even further associated with race. You may have heard the phrase, "veganism is for rich (white) people". I hear it every time someone mistakes me as a vegan and ridicules me (no wonder vegans are angry all the time). It's a stereotype and it bothers me, but stereotypes are based on real life. I live in SoCal, where racial diversity is even. Yet, the paleo foodists I met were white and I found them all at Whole Foods. Now that I think about it, all the people I've known who were vegan, pescetarian, or on other optional diet restrictions (unlike diabetes, high blood pressure, or celiac) were white. From what I saw on paleohacks, everyone who had their photos up were white. These often made me think, "where's everyone else?" I know that there are non-white paleo people out there, but haven't met them.

Even though everyone I saw who proclaims themselves as paleo were white, it seemed that virtually all traditional diets are acceptable on paleo principles without the "paleo" label. For example, I realized that pretty much all Korean and Japanese recipes are paleo-acceptable as long as they're not cooked with PUFAs or milk, which didn't exist in their ancient cultures. Mexican foods, when the legumes are traditionally prepared, are also paleo-acceptable, which may explain the Mexican Paradox. Thus, I can eat Mexican food at a friend's house, but break into hives from eating Chipotle stuff cooked in vegetable oil. You'll disagree with me if you're a strict paleo who only eats grass fed meats and such, but if you allow butter, kefirs, and sprouted grains, then anything traditional is edible.

So, is a paleo way of eating, without the "paleo" label, really as elitist and racially exclusive? I am tired of being judged as "picky" for not eating bread, while I can eat anything traditional. I've never met a "paleo" Mexican, but plenty of healthy Mexicans who eat traditionally.

Answer by Aaron for The Paleo label, veganism, wealth, and race.

2012-06-26T12:42:15Z

Two thoughts:

I'm not sure how the way I choose to eat and live has anything to do with anyone else's race, social or economic status. Paleo, for me, has been a personal journey, not a social-economic one.
By this logic wouldn't traditional Mexican food also be elitist and racially exclusive because it's mostly consumed by Mexicans?

Answer by HuntingBears for The Paleo label, veganism, wealth, and race.

2012-06-26T13:25:31Z

Is it a socioeconomic issue, in that black people tend to be poorer and so perhaps less concerned with quality of food?

Answer by Amy B. for The Paleo label, veganism, wealth, and race.

2012-06-26T15:44:01Z

The funny thing is, if you extrapolate from the work of Weston Price, one could argue that a vegan/vegetarian diet is more a "poor man's diet" than an elitist, expensive one!

A vegan diet is only "elitist" in industrialized countries, where it (maybe) consists of - as another posted pointed out - sprouted grain bread at $7/loaf, raw seed and dried fruit bars at $2/pop, etc. In the developing world, it might more closely resemble nothing but rice and beans, and they certainly wouldn't consider their diet to be one of wealthy folks! In underdeveloped countries, meat is a luxury and a privilege, not sprouted lentils, y'know?

Like Chris Rock said: "People are starving all over the world, what do you mean, 'red meat will kill you?' Don't eat no red meat? No, don't eat no green meat. If you're lucky enough to get your hands on a steak, bite the sh*t out of it!"

Veganism has an expensive/elitist air here because it's not just vegetables and fruit, but rather all the ridiculously expensive vegan processed foods. I am not kidding when I say I probably eat more vegetables (and a wider variety!) than most self-proclaimed vegans and vegetarians who do not eat many vegetables, but rather live on rice, buckwheat, quinoa, couscous, soy "chicken," soy "cheese," and soy milk. Right now, I have 10 different vegetables in my house: cucumbers, yellow peppers, yellow squash, zucchini, cabbage, beets, carrots, celery, broccoli, and onions. I know vegetarians who wouldn't know what kale was if it bit 'em on the you-know-what.

Aaaaanyway, in terms of "Paleo," I do think it can (incorrectly) be interpreted as elitist by those who don't know better. Yes, the ideal is for all grassfed, pastured, organic, hormone free, etc. But I would imagine the number of people who actually attain that ideal is extremely small. Most people probably buy the best they can afford while sticking with REAL FOOD. That is, conventional meat and produce from the regular supermarket. Is it the best? No. But grain-fed conventional beef, CAFO chickens, and non-organic veg and fruits are still better than Eggo waffles and Lean Cuisines.

It's a shame that "Paleo" has the elitist air among some, because it probably stops a lot of people from even trying. ("I can't afford wild-caught salmon and organic spinach, so I guess I'm stuck with pasta and breadsticks for dinner!" COME ON.) Diane Sanfilippo posted a really wonderful piece about this just the other day.

Paleo Perfectionism

Answer by Amy B. for The Paleo label, veganism, wealth, and race.

2012-06-26T16:01:26Z

I'll add another answer, since it's mostly unrelated to my first one:

Let's not forget the issue of "food deserts." There are poorer (and generally more dangerous) sections of urban areas where literally the only place to buy food is 7-11. Nicer supermarkets won't dare open stores there, and people often have to rely on public transportation to get around. If you're talking about single parents trying to hold down a job and raise the kids, they are not gonna make it to the farmer's market.

I dunno. It does seem that people sticking to their culturally/ethnically traditional foods might not be "Paleo" per se (rice, corn, beans, etc), but they are definitely ancestral, which might be a better guide for people's individual health anyway. Is your genetic heritage from Polynesia? Then you probably don't do so well with cow and sheep dairy. Are you of Scandinavian descent? You might want to stay away from mangoes and pineapples. Know what I mean?

The thing is, most of us are "mutts" at this point. Our ancestors have intermingled so much that unless we know for sure what our bloodline is like, we're all mixed to some degree. Even more so if you know that your mother's from Nigeria, say, and your father's from Scotland.

The more I learn about nutrition and health -- and EPIGENETICS, the more I believe that ancestry should guide our individual food choices rather than what our hominid ancestors may or may not have eaten. There really is credibility to different groups being better suited to different diets based on their genetic heritage. I think this is why Dr. Price saw such wide variability in the specific foods different groups were eating yet they ALL were robust and free from mental degeneration and our "diseases of civilization." Some ate dairy, some ate grains, some ate high fat, some ate high fruit. All were WELL.

The one thing we can agree on for sure is that regardless of genetics, there are brand spankin' new manmade "foods" that NO ONE, no matter where they come from, is suited to eat. (HFCS, GMO soy oil, aspartame, etc.)

Answer by Diane for The Paleo label, veganism, wealth, and race.

2012-06-26T16:17:19Z

Having dietary choice is associated with economic privilege. Economic privilege in the US is associated with being white and also with being educated and middle class and above.

Associating your diet with identity politics is a white thing. Identity politics in general is associated with economic privilege and whites generally don't do identity politics with their race so they do it with other things like their diets or their music or other things.

Except for the deep south and maybe Thanksgiving dinner, there really isn't a strong, cohesive American traditional cuisine. The more acculturated we Americans get, the more tendency we have toward pining for some long lost tradition. Paleo might fill that need for some people.

Answer by RA for The Paleo label, veganism, wealth, and race.

2012-06-26T16:19:05Z

Veganism is an for ignorant skinny-fat people

Answer by Kelly for The Paleo label, veganism, wealth, and race.

2012-06-26T16:19:24Z

Honestly, I think there is a bit of truth to this, in the sense that "eating paleo" is mostly something that really educated people seem to do. And demographically it does skew to education = income = more white.

But at the same time, growing up in a relatively educated but not wealthy environment, I think it also has to do with the fact as white 4th generation American lower-middle-class mutts, our diets growing up were the worst of the worst. We had zero traditional/ethnic foods, and everything was the cheap convenient food from a box/can/mix (frozen vegetables if we were lucky). So someone who at least has a tradiditional food background can fall back to eating that way without considering it a "paleo" diet. For us it's a complete rejection of how we were raised to eat, and how our parents and grandparents still eat. And it's very difficult to explain to them and our peers, without giving it some sort of label, because they have no context for it. And also why we have to hang out on message boards like this one, because we're trying to learn more about how to fix our resulting health problems.

Answer by annamalia for The Paleo label, veganism, wealth, and race.

2012-06-26T16:30:23Z

It's hilarious to read that vegans are upperclass over there.

Here in Europe (especially witnessed in Berlin), the perfect vegan is a student in philology/pedagogy, left-wing and definitely not elite or rich in any way.

Offal eating/traditional eating has never really died out here, but it's becoming more and more popular again. Restaurants were the first to pick it up and so the upperclass that frequents good restaurants is happily munching on calf's liver again.

Answer by More Butter Please for The Paleo label, veganism, wealth, and race.

2012-06-26T21:25:41Z

If veganism and paleo are perceived as "for rich (white) people," that's in part because being able to reject entire commonly-consumed categories of food is a luxury.

It means you have the money to buy other, often more expensive, foods to replace sugar, refined grains, or cheap cuts of meat, and that you have easy access to stores that carry them. It means you have a functional kitchen, with safe, pest-free food storage and a refrigerator that works. It means you have time and energy to cook. It means you have suitable cookware and equipment, or can easily acquire it. It means you already have some cooking knowledge, and know what to do with those fresh ingredients so they don't go to waste. It means that you can choose restaurants based on your dietary preference, rather than what is cheapest. And if you're living with other people and cooking for them, it means you have their support.

I was a vegan in my 20s, when I was also poor. But I'd come from a middle-class family who saw to it that I moved out on my own with cookware, utensils, and food storage containers--so I had a reasonably well-equipped, if cramped, kitchen. I had a good landlord, so that kitchen was also rodent-, bug-, and mold-free; it had a reasonable amount of clean, dry storage space, and all of the (full-sized) appliances worked. I also had a regular kitchen sink.

By comparison, the building across the street was full of efficiency studios with tiny galley kitchens. These had small stoves, a mini fridge, about 3' of counter space, and bar sinks smaller than my big salad bowl (with low water pressure, to boot). If cooking was hard under those circumstances, cleaning up--especially anything fatty--was even worse. The people I knew who lived there generally microwaved everything and used paper plates, or else lived on fast food and snacks, because real cooking was just too damned difficult. Other people I knew, with crappy landlords, went weeks, months--or even permanently--without a working stove, fridge, and/or oven, and lacked the resources to assert their rights as tenants.

I lived in an urban neighborhood that had a lot of Latino and Asian immigrants, so there were produce stands nearby and being a vegan was cheap. I had enough education to know how to use the library (back in those pre-Internet days), where I read books on vegan nutrition and cooking. I already knew how to cook well enough to risk spending money on new grains or vegetables, knowing that I would not end up throwing away unpalatable food nobody would eat.

I didn't have a hungry partner, or children dependent upon their free, crap-laden school lunch, clamoring at me to cook animal foods and refusing to eat vegan options. My home environment was stable--I didn't live with domestic violence, criminal activity, or the constant possibility of eviction or deportation. I lived alone, so I could stock up on food, knowing nobody else would eat it and that I wouldn't be forced to leave and have to abandon it (or all my kitchen stuff) because I didn't have a car. Despite being poor, I managed to juggle the utility bills well enough to keep them all on so I could keep storing and cooking whole, perishable foods.

Among my friends and family, indulging in idiosyncratic diets was almost expected. As a middle-class white female, turning down food and living on plant-based starvation rations was perfectly normal "dieting" behavior anyway, so I didn't catch any real grief for it. There was very little significant social pressure to eat animal foods. And I wasn't dependent upon my friends and family for financial or practical support (i.e., child care, rides to the store), so I could afford to hold firm to my way of eating without fear of losing that support if I pissed anyone off.

And because I knew I would not always be poor--that poverty was just a bump in the road I would one day look back at--it was a lot easier for me to care about the long-term consequences of what I ate. I didn't have any money, but I had shitloads of privilege--enough to assume that of course the future was going to be better. How could it not?

To choose a more health-oriented diet that goes against the norm does not necessarily have to be for "rich people" as far as grocery bills are concerned (though I'm not going to lie and say that paleo is cheap). But it does take a lot of other resources. Education--especially the ability to formulate questions, seek out answers on your own, and evaluate your findings--is a HUGE one. So is social support, domestic "infrastructure," and reliable access to food. And for many people living in entrenched poverty, those resources simply don't exist. That's why it's so easy to dismiss paleo or veganism as part of the realm of "rich white people." They might as well say it's for "people who live on the moon."

Eating off the dollar menu, or living on other cheap, heavily-processed convenience foods is not simply about being too stupid, lazy, or ignorant to do better. For the truly poor and marginalized (which, here in the US, strongly correlates with being non-white in most areas), there are so many other social and material factors that make eating vegan or paleo seem like self-indulgent luxuries for the (white) elite. And even when an individual or family manage to create some success for themselves, make more money, and enjoy a wider array of choices, those food habits formed in poverty tend to die really, really hard. It usually takes at least a couple of generations of middle-class comfort and college education before someone feels they can confidently reject the abundant food they've always been able to take for granted as inferior and unhealthy.

Oh, wow--that's a whole lotta tl;dr, isn't it? Okay, I'll stop now.

Answer by Jepo for The Paleo label, veganism, wealth, and race.

2012-06-27T14:46:00Z

Let's recall race theory was discredited when biologists showed all humans have the same genes [just to mention that really race is not a good word --- because of its connotation --- even though widely and regrettably employed in colloquial american]