Vegan Clothing: Hell for Leather

I've been eating a vegan diet for about three months now and I've started encountering another issue. Buying clothing. Taking the vegan concept as total you're not "allowed" to buy or wear fur, wool or leather. For the most part I'd agree with this. Definitely for fur and leather (I'll get into wool in another post). I didn't wear fur before I went vegan so its mostly impacted on wearing and buying leather.

I own several items of leather clothing and to be honest I'm not going to replace them while they're perfectly serviceable and wearable. This could easily come across as hypocritical. I'm pretty sure when it comes to buying new clothing I will buy non-leather alternatives. The main reason for keeping my clothing is that for want of a better way of putting it "the damage is done," and I'm not causing further harm by keeping this clothing.

On top of this making new clothing just uses up more resources when I could continue using existing clothing not to mention the cost of replacing perfectly usable clothing.

However, does this also apply to leather goods bought second hand after one's become a vegan? Some arguments still apply. The clothing already exists and to put it one way (and perhaps a bit glibly) the damage is done. On top of this, honestly, it can be attractive and comfortable. Its also probably cheaper than veggie leather clothing, particularly if second hand. On top of this if you are buying it from a charity shop you are giving to charity, often ones which deal with animal welfare and care.

There is a counter to this. Some could say that it is still creating demand in the wider market for leather goods and charity shops, Ebay sellers and so on are more likely to hold onto leather goods if you add to demand to it. I'm not convinced how much this would change their actions or impact on the initial purchase of the leather good in the first hand. It is altogether possible someone would buy it in the knowledge they could give it to a charity shop or sell it on in the future and I'm simply adding to their potential market.

There is also the argument of principle. As fellow vegan and twitter-lady Cat Turner put it "all leather is second-hand skin" and " but whether its first, second, third-hand its still leather," and she's spot on. I guess its whether you see yourself as tacit in the killing of animals or clothing or whether you're taking advantage of a kind of by-product of modern society.

Because in my personal opinion, some leather clothing is really nice, comfy and stylish! I just don't know whether I can use that reason to justify how it got into my wardrobe.

So hypotherical reader, what do you think?

Meal of the Week 1: Carrot, Hummus and Mango Chutney Toastie

Wow, I really dropped the ball with this blog.

To try and get going again I'll try and blog at least one meal a week that turned out pretty well as well as hopefully other posts.

Anyway. We went to the fair trade cafe on Cheltenham high street hoping to get a carrot, hummus and mango chutney toastie, which we'd seen on the menu the week before. Unfortunately it turns out they rotate their menus weekly so we had other food instead but were still Jonesing for a toastie. So I purchased the ingredients from the nearby tesco metro and made one each for Lyd and I (at 10 past 6 in the morning, on a Sunday before Lyd went to work. I must really love that girl)

Anyway.

2 slices of Tesco finest multigrain bread (soft sliced bread but chunky and tasty, not too pricey if bought occaisionally)
1 carrot (first grated then strips peeled off and placed on the bread)
approx 1-2 teaspoons of plain hummus and (in this case Sharwood's) mango chutney. Each one spready on a different bit of bread.

Place first piece of bread in toastie maker, then strips of carrot, then grated carrot to fill in the gaps, then other bit of bread.

Result: Big, filling chunkie thats both different and yet breakfast-y. Not too bad for you either compared to say, cheese and onion.

Coming soon: more posts! hopefully