07 January, 2008

Isn't Being Vegan Inconvenient?

Hey all,

This is PM here to tackle a question that I must confess is a bit of a problem for me when I'm asked in person.

I went vegan less than a year ago. When I went vegan, I was sixteen and didn't know how to cook or follow a recipe. A teenager to the core, I didn't know how to plan meals or how to anticipate my food needs when grocery shopping. When I first made the switch, my dad left me to save up lunch money for meals. That was inconvenient. Trying to go vegan without support from my family and subsisting on saved up lunch money for a food budget was inconvenient;but being vegan isn't about family enforced poverty. My mom sent me care packages and I eventually moved in with her, problem solved.

That's it. That's my big inconvenience story. I don't feel inconvenienced when restaurants become exercises in patience, or when I've read the whole ingredients list only to realize that it said it had dairy in it in bold print at the bottom. I don't feel inconvenienced when by best-friend gets in a fussy mood and calls me a rabbit-food eating hippy or when I have to bring my own lunch to school every day. Those small and acceptable consequences are the trade-offs that I hardly notice for looking at the pay-out.

As a vegan, and an activist I am doing more to help the world than I ever thought I was capable of. I'm learning to think for myself and what it means to believe in something and to value life enough to change who I am to protect it. I'm healthy. I'm not meek anymore ( ask the vegan freaks : meek vegans suffer). Looking at all of that I can only think that being an omnivore, or at least being who I was as an omnivore was more inconvenient than anything veganism has thrown my way.

Being vegan can be anything from in-expressibly amazing to insufferably alienating, but for me at least, it's not inconvenient. It's a big part of who I am and things like label reading and lunch taking are part of how things are. Does that make sense? Well that's how I see it, and i can't explain it better.

yours till Bush grows a brain,
(like that's going to happen),
Plant_Murderer

4 comments:

  1. Great post! Thank you for describing how I feel.

    "Those small and acceptable consequences are the trade-offs that I hardly notice for looking at the pay-out."

    That's so true! : )

    "yours till Bush grows a brain"

    LOL!

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  2. Dear Gary,

    I am really enjoying your posts. I appreciate your wit and introspection for a young man of your age, and all I can say is...keep your passion alive!

    Best,
    Erik Passoja
    http://www.spirituallyincorrectcomedy.com

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  3. "I'm learning to think for myself and what it means to believe in something and to value life enough to change who I am to protect it."
    Very well put! You just made my day. It's almost 6AM and in a few hours I'll have to go out and face the outside world as a fresh vegan (yeah I haven't been out lately). And I feel so great about it. Just a bit intimidated because I hardly even know any vegetarians around (not to mention vegans) and facing the still omnivorous friends is something I don't know how to handle really...
    But listening to vegan freaks and reading this blog will probably help me through ;)

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  4. ^^ I know what you mean. For me, it's really hard, I'm not gonna lie. I see my friends at lunch, and I see my grandparents at their birthday parties, and I face distant relatives at the "not so common" get-togethers, and it's a bit of a hassle. Not because I remotely even WANT to eat their food, and not because I even seek acceptance... it's just, alienating, sometimes. When I take a look at the bigger picture though, I'm soooo proud. I make it through and I become a better person by doing so. I love all creatures of the world, and I can live with a little less guilt. I LOVE it. Like you said, it's a part of who I am. And I will tackle (verbally or psychically, if need be) all hostile imbeciles who would like to challenge me with proclamations claiming otherwise. >D

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