Isn't Being Vegan Difficult?

Any current difficulties with being vegan -- such as having to decline cake at birthday parties, answering "Where do you get your protein" questions once a week, or knowing too much when you drive by cows grazing -- are society-imposed, not intrinsic.

It's profoundly more difficult to make excuses for inflicting avoidable violence on innocent beings, or to deny it, or to try and not think about the consequences of your actions, or to fend off your conscience. That wears on you, one way or another.

The difficulties in being vegan that one must endure for the time being are miniscule compared to the compassion generated, the suffering spared, the justice restored, and the peace of mind gained.

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(Inspired by the previous post.)

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

Isn't being vegan really inconvenient?

At first, not having so many options when it comes to being a consumer might seem a bit daunting, but once you know your stuff and get a little organised, it's really quite incredibly easy!

There might not be quite so many ready meals out there, but once you learn to cook (can I use this oppurtunity to plug my other, food blog for easy recipes for beginners here? ;) ) you can make large batches of food and freeze or refridgerate some and then heat these up later for those times you are busy, tired and can't be bothered cooking- voila!- ready meals!( plus home cooking is generally a whole lot healthier than ready meals too). You can also take these into work for packed lunches if your work has a microwave, and sometimes even have your omni colleagues wondering what the nice smell is.

As far as eating out goes, you soon get to learn what local places carry vegan options (and do a happy dance when you find them!) and if you're going out for an event with omnis, many places will make a vegan meal up for you so long as you call in advance and explain what a vegan is to them. Even if you're stuck, you can carry snacks in your bag to nibble on (ie nuts, seeds, Nakd or Lara bars etc) until you get home and heat up that yummy thai curry you put away in your freezer earlier.

As far as toiletries and cleaning materials go, I usually bulk buy everything I need from the co-op (a UK chain of supermarkets who are BUAV approved and clearly mark their products as vegan, not to be confused with US co-ops!) or online stores like veganstore.co.uk (who also carry obscure grocery items like nutritional yeast, powdered soya milk etc). By bulk buying every few months I keep travelling or postage costs and time to a minimum.

As you can see, a little bit of organisation makes a vegan lifestyle quite easy and convenient.