Your Daily Vegan

Holly says:

My dad invited me to a picnic in the mountains last year and he said not to worry about bringing food – knowing that my son and I don’t eat meat or dairy. What does he bring? Bratwurst and cookies and cow milk. He tells me that if a person gets hungry enough, they will eat whatever is available. I had crackers. My son and I were starved by the time we got home.

When I first stopped eating meat, I got the – What do ya eat -rabbit food? and well, I don’t care what you eat – just don’t try to make me into one (a vegetarian) – hardy har har!!!! Stupid morons.

Roboteer says:

I find it easier not to treat every conversation as a conversion session. People tend to react negatively to a “hard sell,” no matter what it is. So when coworkers or others joke, “Let’s go get a steak,” I usually respond in a similar humor (“only if they’ll wrap it in bacon”). I figure, everybody needs to have their own epiphany moment before they’re going to make a major life change. I continue to bring vegan food to office potlucks, they continue to taste it, and sometimes we get into serious discussions about where gelatin or rennet comes from. Mostly, though, I hope to portray a good example of being (almost) vegan and just a regular person, not some fringe political freak, and break down some of those barriers that can make meat-eaters so defensive.

Vegiegail says:

How can you not lose your patience with stupidity? I find it a daily challenge (sometimes an hourly challenge!) to try to remain in a space where I can feel compassion for those who chose to live in blissful ignorance. But it’s extremely difficult to extend compassion to those who willfully cause so much suffering to others. I think that many of us have chosen to be vegans in this life in part, to learn to fully manifest both patience and compassion. Why else would we be confronted with these challenges with such frequency?

GNews says:

Oh boy this is a hot topic, one that can make my blood boil. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

You take one vegan who’s diet isn’t great and that somehow makes all vegans unhealthy in the eyes of these stupid people. I wish this were done with meateaters as well. Looking at all the people who get high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, nobody ever says “Oh it’s because she ate all that meat and she has acne because she drinks milk”. No then it’s because it runs in their families, or because they smoked or just because.

My own family doesn’t invite me to birthdays because it makes them, in their own words, uncomfortable that we won’t eat their cake, yet my brother is so fat he hasn’t seen his own short and curlies in decades, he has to take meds for his skyrocketing blood pressure and he is on the brink of developing diabetes, his daughter seems to be rapidly expanding and nearly needs two seats on a plane at the age of 21. Both of them sat in my kitchen telling me how unhealthy it is to be vegan and that they know vegetarians who have to take supplements (oh my freaking gawd, the horror of having to take supplements) Ah but I’m the unhealthy one. Most people know nothing about nutrition but become experts as soon as a vegan enters the room and know exactly why veganism is wrong. You ask them if they know what protein is and they just say protein equals meat (my nephew’s words). My own mother thinks we have to eat animals or the streets would be overrun with them and grass would grow sky high. I’ve had people tell me that they are just too sensitive to even look at mistreated animals, and with that sensitive heart they sit inside a McDonalds contributing to the misery animals have to endure.

People who can’t think beyond their own wants and desires need to make us the bad guys to justify their own ignorance and lack of compassion. And sometimes just the sight of them makes my stomach turn.

Amberlyn says:

I swear I lose my patience at work all the time. My coworkers ask me the same freakin questions all the time. “What do you eat? tree bark?” Then they proceed to tell people that I’ve gone crazy because I’m vegan. Then the customers get in on the act with the whole “animals were made to be eaten thing”. The funny thing is….I started being vegan because I had such adverse reactions to animal products. The animal rights came next (a very close second though). Living my life with allergies (and not just food ones. I’m allergic to most commercial cleaning products including laundry detergent) makes me “an extremist”. Stupid people. And my favorite one was this vegetarian telling me that veganism isn’t healthy……I swear to you I’m still trying to figure this one out.