Despite being a diet and lifestyle that is enjoyed by millions of people the world over, veganism is still somewhat of a divisive subject for whatever reason, and stories like this one probably aren't going to make naysayers any less heated on the matter.
On fitness website Honey Coach, writer Alexandra Carlton answered a question posed by a reader about an incident eight years ago with a neighbor who refused to get rid of her child's head lice because she did not want to be responsible for killing a living thing.
The reader's daughter, who was seven years old at the time, had befriended the girl who lived next door to her family. The girl next door, River, came from a vegan family and was described as a "delightful child".
However, one day the reader, who goes by the name of Nitty Gritty, realized that River was "scratching furiously" and it was revealed that she was crawling with head lice.
Writing into Honey Coach, Nitty Gritty said, "I'm pretty easygoing – which kid doesn't get nits every now and then? – and casually mentioned it to her mum thinking she'd jump right on it. To my surprise, this woman said that not only did she know about her daughter's condition but refused to do anything about it.
"Vegans don't kill any living things, is the reason. My neighbor told me she was in the practice of combing the lice and nits into the garden where they had a chance of survival. My jaw hit the floor."
Naturally, Nitty Gritty was looking for answers to what looked set to become a serious neighborhood dilemma.
"What do I do now? I don't want to separate the kids but there's no way 'combing them into the garden' is going to work (industrial-grade pesticide barely works) and I don't want my daughter covered in vermin."
Alexandra's answer was, well, erm, we were not envisioning a reference to the holocaust, let's just put it that way.
"I hate to be the one to tell you this but your neighbor is a monster. Does this woman not realize that simply combing those poor lice off their supporting hairs is condemning them to a slow, parched death in the garden? Does she not stop to think of the microscopic amoeba she's crushing each time she swipes through her daughter's locks?
"As you read this, she's probably swallowing ladlefuls of innocent bacteria while she drinks her raw kelp kombucha smoothie, Nitty, sending them to a sizzling demise in the pits of her stomach acid. As Tony Abbott said, at least the Nazis went to some efforts to hide their crimes. This woman is in total and catastrophic denial of the extent of her germicidal ways."
We never had it confirmed whether or not the tale came with a happy ending that suited all parties. We also hope that Nitty didn't mention Alexandra's line about the Nazis trying to hide their crimes when discussing the issue of head lice with her neighbor.
Call us old fashioned but we believe that it's PROBABLY best practice to not make a light-hearted gag about Nazi war crimes when simply talking about a head lice issue with your next door neighbor. Try and keep the conversation friendly, perhaps?
