Another fatty vegan favorite is the aforementioned avocado. Hass there ever been a more perfect food? Get it? Hass? The dominant avocado varietal? Never mind.

Avocados have their own sordid ways of getting on our plates. I could point out the obvious, that it takes ~520 gallons of water to grow 2 lbs. of avocados but let’s ignore the water issue for a second.

Instead, let’s address the drug cartels. Yes girl, drug cartels.

In the same way the global demand for cashews inspires malicious tactics to sustain that market, the popularity of avocados motivates drug cartels to fuel the world’s latest addiction. An undertaking made easier by the meddling affairs of the United States government. 

American influence has historically destabilized the Mexican federal government. For instance, in the mid 70’s the Chair of the US Federal Reserve inflated interest rates, taking prime loans from 12 to 21% interest. This created a recession that caused Mexico to restructure its loans from the US. Had they not, they would owe US banks about $8 billion in annual interest payments.

After becoming financially indebted to the US government, Mexico joined the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The result being Mexico had to mimic America’s Free-Market- Dick-Sucking-Ways. Socialized programs got privatized, subsidies for small farmers were eliminated and with it so were subsidies that kept down the price of basic necessities. NAFTA also shifted Mexico’s agriculture to primarily exporting crops. AKA, your avocados.

Basically, a bunch of people became poor and hopeless at the same time. Boom. That’s a petri dish for crime.

Cartels grew and established strongholds over local police and municipal governments, then they began to control entire towns. Maintaining that power by murdering any politician brave enough to speak out against corruption.

So, all this is pretty grim, but you’re probably thinking this has nothing to do with vegans. It doesn’t, but it will. 

American stipulations on North American trade put these gangs in power and the rise of the American “war on drugs”, made these cartels more ingenious. Drugs may have an increasing legality issue, but avocados, green gold, that’s a legal cash cow.

Cartels are now making millions from this vegan superfood and here’s how it works:

First, cartels move into a farming community and pay off the police and the politicians. If someone can’t be paid off, they’re conveniently disposed of, leaving only those who have a vested interest in not bringing these cartels to justice. 

Then they steal, kidnap, and extort.

To make quick money, cartels will steal harvested crops to sell on their own. For a more long-term goal, avocado farmers are extorted for increasingly larger sums of money. Sustaining their financial demand can be impossible through harvests alone forcing farmers to sell off their land.

The last tactic is kidnapping. Farmers themselves or family members will be held for days, weeks, or months even until cartels squeeze every last peso they can out of their bereaved victim.

And just like the American appetite for avocados, their greed is insatiable.

They don’t stop until they’ve run entire communities to ruin or force them into vigilante justice. The people who grow your favorite “ethical” food live in poverty and fear of it. Some of them have been tortured. Some have been murdered. Some now have to become murderers themselves. 

While being an ancillary participant in another country’s internal dysfunction might not stir vegan sympathies, there is something more apropos to vegan values.

Mexican farmers aren’t the only ones being exploited. Bees are too.

In order to pollinate their orchards despite a bee shortage, domestic avocado and almond farmers in California truck bees back and forth to their farms. While the use of bees should already declassify avocados and almonds as vegan, it is worth mentioning that the constant transport kills a bunch of them.

Buzz buzz bitches.

Now if you ask me my honest opinion, and you never need to because I give it generously, I would say vegans have no business giving a fuck about bees. Care if they die, sure. But beekeeping is not slavery, it’s a fucking bug without any ability to comprehend abstract concepts like freedom and liberty. It just wants to fuck some flowers and move on with its day.

But a third avocado concern is its water consumption. Just like using bees, almonds and avocados share a need for a fuck ton of water. About 520 gallons for 2 lbs. of avocados to be exact.

It’s obvious where I’m going with this, right?

Mass-produce avocados and you mass-consume water. And like any other resource scarcity, the effects of drought are felt most by working-class people. In Chile, commercial avocado farms are known to redirect water to their massive orchards to satisfy their thirsty plants. In doing so, they deprive smaller farms, regular families, and whole communities’ access to a fundamental human right.

Not unlike almonds.