The Greggs' Effect

Veganism, classism and disableism

I’m pretty sure everybody in the UK and a fair few people outside it will have learned that Greggs – a low cost bakery chain – released a vegan sausage roll in early 2019. It caused much consternation amongst some quarters, most noticeably those who look up to the conservative “political pundit” and former game-show-host Piers Morgan. Piers’ over-the-top and toddler likerejection of the vegan sausage roll was a rallying cry for those who hate veganism generally, people who simply couldn’t understand why vegans might want a budget bakery item. Sadly this criticism and disbelief wasn’t just limited to those of a more socially conservative bent. There was also a surprising amount of wailing from people within the vegan community. It’s not healthy enough? Why would you want a meat replacement? If you’re vegan why are you buying from Gregg’s at all.

In some ways this second wave of criticism was actually more frustrating. After all anybody who doesn’t belong to the cis-male, white, straight, “British” group is pretty used to at some point coming in the firing line of Morgan and his brethren. That’s sadly the way of the world: stray from the path of what “they” have defined as “normal” and you will be criticised (or downright discriminated against). But when you are part of a counter-culture or alternative lifestyle group, you generally expect a certain amount of solidarity from within, even accounting for differing opinions and personalities. So a wave of criticism from your own “side” especially when you are also being attacked from other quarters can really knock the wind out of your sails.

photo from wikimedia image shows the store front of a Greggs Bakery. It has a blue and white sign with an orange square logo)

So now it’s almost 6 months later, and the financial news is reporting that Greggs is reporting soaring profits and steady gains in the stock market almost entirely attributed to increased sales of and because of the vegan sausage roll. With that success, Greggs is talking about expanding their vegan range, which for me is only a good thing. But with that comes controversy. Remember that criticism from other vegans I talked about only two paragraphs ago? Right that becomes an issue. You see there is a perception from non-vegans that veganism should be “healthy”, and this is a perception that is held up in some quarters of the vegan community. Vegan food should be “healthy” natural, full of vegetables, whole grains and other nutritionally superior goodies. Additionally we shouldn’t want to be mimicking meat because this is somehow ethically unsound and requires more of those pesky “unnatural” processed foods. These are the sorts of people making suggestions for new Greggs products that include lots of different vegetables and interesting grains, less fats and less delicious golden pastry.

But here’s the thing – nobody thinks that Greggs is or ever has been a bastion of healthy lifestyle. Nobody, vegan or otherwise, goes to Greggs expecting a nutritionally balanced, “healthy”, whole foods, natural lunch. You go to Greggs because you are hungry and it’s there and sometimes a baked good is exactly what you fancy. And that’s entirely ok.

Initially this debate may look fairly inconsequential and not something worth spending much time on. If one group doesn’t like fake meat and another does what’s the problem? The problem is that this actually becomes an argument about disablism, classism and food snobbery within veganism and other lifestyle choices.

So let me tell you about an experience I had just today. For context, I have been to Greggs only once since the introduction of the vegan sausage roll and I wasn’t a frequent visitor before that. Recently my CFS/ME has been worse than usual and I’ve been having a higher number of high fatigue days. I’m finding it more difficult to balance out exertion and rest as needed. So on this particular Thursday I had been to get my hair done. Due to the timing of the appointment, I hadn’t had a proper lunch though I had had a snack. My mid afternoon I was very hungry and my bloodsugar was low. I was also starting to struggle with fatigue. Due to that difficulty I wasn’t thinking straight and instead of getting a taxi from the place literally next door to my hairdresser’s I decided to get a bus half way home and walk the rest. I was soon really exceptionally fatigued and struggling to walk much. I was shaking and walking with slower and slower steps. I was also very hungry. All I wanted to do was sleep and eat, preferably at the same time. I hadn’t budgeted for lunch out, after all I’d just spent money on getting my hair done and now had to be conservative with spending. Luckily for me my route took me past a small shopping centre. So now I had options. Supermarket, discount food store, chain cafe and Greggs. In reality due to my fatigue and my budget I didn’t actually have that many options at all. I did not have the energy to walk around a supermarket looking for individual easy to eat vegan items. That would probably end up costing around £5 too which is more than I wanted. Likewise with the discount food store – it may be discounted but what they have available is varied and it would take a lot of energy to search out and check labels. The cafe would be more expensive and I’d probably only be able to get a cookie. Greggs and their vegan sausage roll was looking like some sort of greasy baked good oasis.

I got my sausage roll (the very last one) and ate it in a very few bites leaning against the wall and in short order the signs of hypoglycemia subsided and I and a fraction more energy. I was only £1 down to boot. It only took a short rest against the wall (because all the benches were out in the rain) and I judged myself able to make it home on foot. Thank goodness it was downhill from there. Even then the last 100m were painfully slow and on getting home I still had to have a protein smoothie banana and then fall into a solid sleep for two hours.

photo author's own. image shows an agender person wearing glasses and a black hoodie. They have green and purple curly hair and are leaning against a wall holding a sausage roll in a Greggs paper bag to their mouth

But what’s the point of this not so thrilling look into the average day of somebody with ME? Well here goes. That slightly greasy, warm, flaky pastry encases lump of processed fake meat was exactly what I needed right then. Regardless of what I actually like the taste of what I needed was something simple, that I could eat right then and there with one hand, that had protein fat and carbs, that required little thinking, no checking of ingredients and of course was cheap.

Don’t get me wrong I love good food. I love home-made-from-scratch food. I love piles of vegetables and interesting ingredients. I am the sort of person who makes asparagus and cucumber beurre blanc with pasta as “an easy simple meal”. I can frequently be found shoving handfuls of fruit into my face. I love “healthy” “natural” food. But what I also need is food I can eat and food I can afford. 

An awful lot of vegan food that goes down the healthy lifestyle route just doesn’t tick those boxes. When I am that exhausted or have brain fog issues I can’t be checking ingredients to make sure something non-vegan or something that sets of my IBS isn’t in there – and yes many common health foods are super incompatible with IBS, which is a common component of CFS/ME and EDS. I don’t have energy to stand dithering at a counter figuring out which superfood salad really hits the spot. I don’t have the energy to go around a supermarket looking for different items. Sometimes it’s because the things I need in order to be healthy are things over looked in so-called healthy food (and I promise not to derail into an entire other article about notions of “healthy” food) and that is that carbohydrates, some fats and protein, the big easy things, are really important to a person’s diet and are often especially important to somebody with a chronic health condition who just needs fuel. Vitamin B12 is essential to body function and something I need to be mindful of on a vegan diet. But it doesn’t matter how much B12 I get if I don’t get the required number of calories, grams of carbohydrate and protein into my body to just keep me upright.

On top of that I don’t have a lot of money. If I want to do things like get my hair dyed at a salon I budget for it carefully (including taxis when I remember them) and that means I can’t be spending a fortune on eating out every time I get hungry (and no I can’t carry packed lunches everywhere, that gets heavy and energy sapping fast).

Sometimes I just want easy tasty food that I don’t have to think too hard about and that I can afford.

Sometimes I just need easy tasty food that I don’t have to think too hard about and that I can afford.

I am not going to Greggs because I want nutritionally balanced fancy food. I am going there because it fills a particular niche in daytime food whether you are vegan or not. So for everybody suggesting that Greggs start doing a butternut squash and spinach pastie, whilst yes that does sound lovely, will you kindly shut up. Go and get that somewhere else. You can I assure you find that somewhere else. What I want is a vegan corned beef slice. Or a vegan cheese and onion roll (this is a flagrant lie, I’ve never liked cheese and onion rolls and onion triggers my IBS). Or a vegan steak bake. Now there’s choice. Things so simple the ingredients are in their name. Things so simple you can get it and a drink and have change out of a fiver.

You may be thinking “well if you are disabled and have such difficulty finding food then maybe you shouldn’t be vegan?” or even “Well if you haven’t got much money then you shouldn’t be fussy about your food?”.

I’m just going to give you a few moments to really think about what you are saying there.

Let me tell you how those things sound to me: when you say somebody who is disabled, chronically ill or poor shouldn’t be vegan you are telling me that somebody who is disabled, chronically ill or poor shouldn’t be allowed to have their own ethics, morals or beliefs. I don’t care if you agree with my beliefs or not, but I am very, very concerned that you would think that a person’s right to their own thoughts, their own beliefs and ethics should be governed by their physical ability or health and their financial status. Every single person in this country is by law guaranteed the right to have their own ethics and beliefs and to act on them as long as they don’t cause harm to anybody else. If my beliefs are that I don’t eat animal products then I should have the right to do so even if I am ill, disabled or poor. Because on top of that right to hold ethics there is also the human right that I or anybody else should not be discriminated against due to disability or socioeconomic status. If non-disabled people can choose to eat an animal free diet then why do you believe that somebody who is disabled does not have that right?

If you have the energy to get “higher quality” food or to look for something more nutritionally complete or with fresher ingredients. Great, you do that. And on my good days I’ll be right there with you enjoying some delicious delicious greens. But on my bad days if that’s all that’s on offer I won’t be by your side. I’ll be on the floor crying because my legs don’t move any more.

To insist that all vegan food should be healthy, natural and conform to a certain narrow view of what vegan food should look like is classist and disableist. To level that criticism at other vegans, to tell them they are “doing it wrong” or aren’t “proper vegans” or should be in some way ashamed for wanting a mass produced cheap baked good is classist and disableist and you need to stop. You eat what you want, and let me eat my dream vegan corned beef slice before I pass out.

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Me Vs My Disability

Many people who are disabled have to walk a fine line controlling other people’s perception of them: the line between looking vulnerable and not yourself and appearing “not disabled enough”.

The way our society treats disable people erases their identity and turns individuals into a single homogeneous being of “The Disabled”. We are stripped of what makes us us and instead represented by walking sticks blue badges wheelchair pictographs and infernal aluminium and grey plastic.

“You don’t look disabled!” and “But you don’t look sick!” are stock phrases that every disabled person will be tired of hearing. The phrase is usually offered one of two ways: disbelief and judgement or an attempt at a compliment.

When offered as a compliment it is to say “you don’t look how I think a disabled person looks” or “you don’t look pathetic or weak”. This is part of erasing our identity and assuming that all disabled and chronically ill people fit into a single mould. It also assumes that the goal and the ideal is for the person to not be disabled and so be successfully looking “not disabled” we are achieving success. It also ignores the fact that regardless of how we look we are still disabled, we have gone to great effort to look our best but that doesn’t mean we negate our disability.

When the phrases are said with animosity or judgement they fuel discrimination. The implication is usually that in claiming disability status, and especially in making use of any support or assistance, we are lying, faking or acting fraudulently. Again this comes from a place of not conforming to views of what a disabled person should look like or how they should act. It also ignores the fact that you are often only seeing disabled or chronically ill people on good days, not on the bad days or at times when their disability limits interaction: if a disabled person can’t every make it into a pub with poor accessibility some people may draw the conclusion that disabled people don’t go to the pub. That is to say, enjoying a pint with their friends doesn’t fit the picture of disability which has been created in their minds.

photograph showing a person from the waist up wearing dungarees and a black t-shirt, they have grey lipstick, glasses and green hair. They have tube bandages on both elbows. credit Chiara MacCall

The impact of this can be devastating from verbal and physical discrimination and abuse, an unwillingness to improve accessibility to place out of a belief that disabled people won’t use certain facilities, to privation when benefits aren’t awarded or long term health issues and even fatality if medical treatment is denied.

One of the often unspoken casualties of this attack on how disabled people should look and behave is the mental health and well-being of a disabled person. When you are reduced only to one aspect of your life, and that aspect is often difficult and unpleasant or comes with negative associations, it can wear away at a person’s sense of self, their confidence and self worth. Additionally being constantly questioned and doubted as to the validity of their experience can cause guilt, confusion, stress and paranoia. The mental health cost of the general public not really seeing disabled people as people is massive.

Photograph of a person from the waist down. They are seated and are wearing blue short dungarees over a black t-shirt. They have black skeleton print knee socks on, camo-print K-Tape on their left knee, tube grips on their elbows and support gloves on. Their hands resting on a walking stick. credit Chiara MacCall

However there is a balance to be struck. If we see only the individual and erase their disability, we may create more inequality by not addressing the access and care needs of disabled people. If we see only the disability we erase their identity along with any other characteristics and difficulties they may face (because a disabled person may also be a black person, a Muslim, gay, trans, poor or other minority characteristics).

I have writtenpreviously about being seen as a vulnerable adult. This continues to be an issue especially following a recent burglary that has left me very aware that I am to many people who see me a vulnerable person. To those who only see the disability I am an easy target (if their minds lead to nefarious activity any way). That’s a very difficult position to find yourself in. I don’t want to be viewed as nothing more than an equation that disabled = vulnerable yet I must face the fact that not only are there people who view me this way but that they aren’t entirely incorrect.

What could I do really if there was an intruder in my house, especially on a bad day where I was struggling with fatigue or pain. Could I fight back if attacked? Could I defend myself and my house. The answer is, probably no. Despite the fact that I have, prior to my disability, years of martial arts training is inconsequential. It doesn’t matter that for somebody with my health conditions I am relatively strong. The majority of time I am a vulnerable adult and I know that anybody seeing me in the street or, gods forbid watching me exit and enter my house with my walking stick, could conclude that I am an easy target.

Understandably this is a very difficult concept to deal with. Nobody likes to think of themselves as a target or feel unsafe in their own home. But worse than that it strips me of my identity and personality. It reduces me to that concept of disabled and nothing more.

photograph that is blurred showing motion. A person is walking away from the camera wearing a backpack and using their walking stick. Credit Chiara MacCall

But I am more than that. And I want non-disabled people to know that. I want non-disabled people to start to look beyond the sticks and chairs and hearing aids and to see real people and to understand that if somebody saying they are disabled even if you can’t see any obvious indicators, even if they don’t fit the traditional narrative of what disability looks like, that maybe they are disabled and maybe there is more to them than that disability. Being disabled does not erase my gender or my sexuality. It does not erase that I like heavy and eclectic music. It does not erase the fact that I love art and books and food. It doesn’t erase that I enjoy being active and singing and horses. It doesn’t erase my political opinions or activism.

photograph showing an arm stretching up toward the sky with a crane behind it. The arm is hyperextended and the elbow is at an unusal angle and covered by a tube bandage. The fingers are splayed wide. Credit Chiara MacCall

More than that those many things and more that make up who I am do not in any way make me less disabled, cure my disability, make me a liar, make me a faker, erase my disability or my experience as a disabled person.

That’s what the photographs illustrating this article are all about. They are a collaboration with documentary photographer Chiara MacCall who uses her lens to show who people really are and who has a great talent for showing what is beneath the surface of her subjects. I spent a day in London with Chiara being disabled and being me. We ate good food, talked politics and social justice, looked at art both in galleries and on the street and talked about what it was that made us who we are. I was not “born disabled”. I gained my disability in my late 20s. It has taken a long time for me to accept that this is a part of who I am, that it can be a part of who I am without erasing my personality, identity and the sum of the experiences I had had up until that point. Just as taking a dance class when I was 7 shaped who I am today, so did becoming disabled when I was 27.

My self identity does not invalidate my disability and my disability does not invalidate me.

Photograph showing a person wearing dungarees a black t-shirt, black skeleton print socks with various joint supports and a walking stick stood in front of a large piece of street art showing an orange skinned femme figure covered in flowers. cred Chiara MacCall

Ticks, Lyme Disease and LARP

Ticks are found anywhere there are animals, especially grazing animals and those that live in woodland undergrowth.

This is important information if you are a LARPer as many of our games take place on land that is perfect habitat for ticks and the animals they live on. If you spend anytime outdoors in these sort of places you should be aware of what ticks look like and learn the early symptoms of Lyme Disease.

photograph of the back of a child's neck with the hair pushed aside to show a small dark lump embedded in the skin at the hairline. This is an embedded tick.

photograph close up of a person's finger tip. There are four ticks arranged from smallest to largest. The smallest is a fraction of a millimetre. The largest is ~3 millimetres long.  

Look out for ticks

Check your body over each day (before bed or when dressing) for tick bites. Tics usually latch on to feed so run your hands over areas you can’t see clearly or get somebody to help. Look out for bites with dark spots in the middle or small hard lumps - this is the attached tick.

If you find a tick still attached you need to remove it as soon as possible using a safe method. The best method is to use a pair of tweezers or special tick tool to gently grab the tick as close to the skin as possible and firmly pull up and out. 

Other methods such as smothering with vaseline or burning off are not as reliable and can leave you with part of the tick still attached or feeding for longer than you want.

three panel illustration from Kid's Health. Panel 1 shows how to grasp a tick with tweesers for removal. Panel 2 shows cleaning and checking the bite area. Panel 3 shows saving the tick in a ziplock bag for later testing.

Once removed wash the bite and then keep a very close eye on your general health.

The Bullseye Rash

Look out for a bullseye rash as pictured below. 

close up photograph of a person's thigh showing a large circular red rash with faint "bullseye" markings

Large poster from Lyme Disease Association showing a number of different Lyme rashes both typical and atypical.

If you develop a rash even if you didn’t see the tick or know you were bitten get to a GP as soon as you can. This isn’t an A&E (ER) thing but you do want medical attention sooner rather than later. It can take up to 2 weeks for the rash to appear. This rash is an early symptom of Lyme Disease which is a bacterial infection spread by ticks. 

Symptoms to be aware of

If you know you were bitten by a tick or suspect there is a chance you were (i.e. you have a bite but don’t know what insect did it) and start to develop severe flu-like symptoms then go to your GP as soon as you can and tell them you had an insect bite.

Severe flu-like symptoms include:

• extreme fatigue
• muscle and joint aches
• dizziness or vertigo
• tender glands esp at the neck
• general feeling of unwell
• you generally will NOT develop a runny nose or cough

While the rash is a classic symptom of Lyme Disease it only appears in around 50% of cases. Generally if you have a rash or other indicative symptoms your doctor will give you a prescription for antibiotics. This is usually a two to three week course of something like doxycycline. 

With an initial course of antibiotics taken within a few weeks of infection Lyme Disease is usually completely treated and cured, and you will make a full recovery. 

Untreated Lyme can have long term affects on your health and can be serious however by knowing what to look for you can get treated early and be fine. 

Other preventative measures:

Insect repellents - most insect repellent will have some effect against ticks but those containing Icaridin/Picaridin/Saltidin/Bayrepel/Piperidine or PMD/Citriodiol/ Lemon eucalyptus /menthoglycol are most effective. Remember you need to reapply throughout the day, especially if you wash or get rained on.

Clothing - ideally long sleeves and trousers that are tucked in to sock will keep ticks off of you. They can sometimes get inside cuffs and collars though to do be careful to check.

A note for LARPers- all players and crew who take place in games outdoors should be aware of this information. It’s not just combat characters who go crashing through hedges that are at risk. I got bitten at a game in October 2011 playing a non-com who was hiding. The first picture of a bullseye rash comes from a person who was bitten two weeks ago while running a game.

Why do I make these PSAs?

Now for my personal story and why I always link LARP and Lyme. As I mentioned I was bitten at a LARP game. The game was called Winter in the Willows and had us playing animal characters based on the book Wind in the Willows. I was playing a hedgehog. 

During the game we were approached by a pair of otters who were part of an evil cult. These otters radiated a mass fear effect causing all characters within a certain radius to react with terrible fear. Most characters chose to flee. However, me being a hedgehog did what hedgehogs do best. I curled into a ball and rolled into the underbush, quivering with fear, to hide. I didn't leave until the otters were gone and a trusted IC friend came and got me. Excellent roleplay. Very effective.

That evening I had a sore spot on my shoulder. I occasionally get acne or spots on my shoulders and though nothing of it, just rubbed it a bit and carried on with things. Once home from the game I still had the sore spot on my shoulder and could feel a little lump. Because of where it was I couldn't see it. I assumed it was the head of the spot or it had gone a little crusty or scabby. Gross I know but I think we've all experienced spots like that. I knocked the "scab" off and cleaned it and that was it. 

Within a week I started to get ill. I was exhausted, my body was aching, I was getting dizzy spells and my glands were tender. I assumed a bad cold or "post LARP lurgy" - it's not uncommon to pick up a bug at a LARP event after all. But I didn't get better. 

Instead it got worse, but never turned into flu. After two months of this I finally went to a doctor. I was told it was post viral fatigue and I had probably just caught a bug. I was tested for Epstein-barr virus just to be sure but it was inconclusive. Another month passed with no improvement and fatigue and pain that was causing me to miss work. That's when the real testing began. 

Over the next six weeks I had countless blood draws for testing and, thanks to my job at the time being veterinary science, we tested for pretty much everything usual and unusual and down right rare. 

I got a positive diagnosis of Lyme Disease in May, the day before my birthday. That was 6 months after I first got ill. 

I won't go in to the whole story of treatment and doctors because it is lengthy and a bit dull. But suffice to say, 6 months is too late to be starting with a basic course of doxycycline. I'm still ill 6 years later. That doesn't happen to everybody, but really you need to catch and treat it early. 

Don't be like me. Know about ticks and Lyme Disease and look after yourself. 

Sunday Short - Being Disruptive is Necassary

Sunday Shorts will be brief blog posts often drawn from things i have posted on other media such as facebook or tumblr.

Screen shot of a tumblr post - an anonymous question to user beeth0ven and their reply. Transcript below.

Transcript:

anonymous asked:
I def get the cripple punk movement and on the other hand the entire thing is a little to Malcolm X and not enough MArtin Luther for me.

beeth0ven answered:
mlk is so often misquoted and taken out of conext by white people. MLK wasnt just "we are equal lets be peaceful" guy - knew that the apathetic white was the biggst danger of all, he knew capitalism was an evil. he said plenty of things they don't teach you in school.
You also act like malcolm x was wrong in some way. this movement isnt for you. it's not for able bodied people. sorry to hurt your feelings.

My response:

What you mean when you say this anon, is that you want to humour disabled people but not actually listen. You are happy to give people the opportunity to speak but not to make waves. You think it is sufficient for people to complain and say things suck but you are not prepared to make actual changes. You want to feel like an ally who supports disabled people but you don’t want to change the status quo or move out of your comfort zone.

Disabled people need real changes and they need real support. That’s going to shake you out of the status quo and it’s going to feel disruptive but that’s not a bad thing. That’s a positive thing because it is a sign of change.

You think the soil doesn’t get disrupted when a plant shoots? You think the plant is ad or amoral for growing?

You are the soil. We are the plants. We are growing and you will be disrupted. But it’s either that or you keep us suppressed underground.




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