It’s not directly about something vegan-related, but I recently watched two episodes of The X-Files that made me want to get up and post here.
It was a two-parter about some crazy and dangerous guy, Duane Barry, who believed he had been abducted by aliens a few times and took some people hostage to prove to his shrink that his abduction stories were true.

When I watched the scenes where Duane was experimented on by aliens and saw how absolutely terrified he was, unable to do anything, not knowing what was going to happen but knowing he wasn’t going to enjoy one bit of it, I kept thinking how that’s what it must be like for laboratory animals undergoing certain tests.

A victim’s perspective rather than the one from the experimenter or some clean and sanitised story fiulled with euphemisms we are told when people explain the absolute nececessity of using animals in research.

The utter confusion, not knowing what’s going on, what will happen, possibly being unable to even grasp suchs things even if they would be explained to them the way most humans of a certain age do…
It was quite distressing. Which fitted well with the episodes, but this made it distressing in an entirely different way than intended, one not quite as easy to shrug off once the episode was over.

Another thing was that, at one point, Duane mentioned how the greys knew what he was thinking, or knew he was suffering, but ignored him. I’m not sure about the exact quote, but with me already thinking of lab animals, it made me think of something I read about some time ago. I can’t currently find any decent links to further explain, but it was about how vivisectors aren’t very good at noticing the suffering in the non-human animals they’re using for their experiments. Not even because they consciously ignore it, more like they’ve sort of become blind to it.
It may have been in the same article or leaflet that I read that if students return to clinical medicine after some time doing experiments on animals, their ability to notice signs of pain and distress in human animals has become a little dodgy as well.
Again, I don’t have anything proper to back this up, but I’ll see if I can still find whatever it was I learned it from for some references or something.

One thing that frustrates me how rarely these kinds of connections are made on screen. I can’t actually remember if I’ve ever seen that happen, really. We’re clearly expected to think this sort of thing should not be done to humans, but we’d best not think too hard about other creatures. After all, that might lead to us having to make some changes.

Occasionally, one can find some discussion about whether or not good old Mac is vegetarian. While I obviously think he should be vegan, I very much leaning towards assuming he isn’t actually, seeing as he doesn’t seem too concerned about avoiding meaty foods. This may change in later seasons, though. It’s been ages since I’ve seen anything past early season four and there seem to be mentions of him actually being vegetarian later on.
However, even early in the series he does seem to eat some vegetarian/health foods that makes others think he kind of odd. Like those alfalfa sprouts he loves so much because of their mineral content and the way they don’t leave stains when he spills some.

Ever the practical man, that Mac.

And he’ll eat tofu, too. While I can get quite excited at characters randomly eating veg*an foods as if it normal (yeah, I know. Tofu-dishes aren’t necessarily veg*n, but it is supposedly all we eat), in MacGyver this food can be presented as something icky and gross no “normal” person would want to eat. Mac may enjoy it, or at least suffer through it because he’s a superhuman more concerned with his health than enjoying his meal, but the viewing audience isn’t expected to be like that.

There are probably several examples, but the only one I remember is that tofu casserole he’d made when Pete was staying with him. It looked like salmon mousse in an oven dish, just some bland, colourless supposedly baked mash. Pete sure didn’t waste any time before complaining and getting Mac to go for some Chinese take-out. Never any soya foods found there, I expect.
To be fair, it may have been most tasty. Heaven knows not all of the stuff I cook up looks too great, and it usually tastes just fine. Here, however, I strongly suspect that’s not what they were going for, what with Pete’s reaction and the common prejudice that healthy and/or veg*n food is gross.

While I’m sure there have been some monstrous foods advertised and consumed for their nutritional value rather than their taste, it is perfectly possible to cook up something both tasty and nutritious. It perfectly easy, even. It’s something I expect Mac, the eternal bachelor, to be able to to do. But we can’t have people find out about that one, now can we? Not when we can perpetuate a perfectly good stereotype.