My Vegan Q-and-A
So a couple of months ago, I decided to try out being vegan for 3 weeks and see what I thought of it. Turns out it's easy and makes me happy and feel good physically, so I am still doing it, with no intentions of changing. However, when I first started thinking about it, I had a lot of conversations with Casey, my family, and friends and they asked me questions and gave me reasons for eating meat that I didn't necessarily have answers for right then. Not like I have all the answers now, or anything, but I wanted to share what I've been asked and what I've found out as far as answers that work for me.
1. Don't you need meat to be healthy?
Nope. If you think about it, when you're eating animals and getting nutrients from them, they are mostly nutrients that the animals got from eating plants. So animals get B-12 from eating bacteria which is in dirt on their foods. People get it from eating the animals. You can skip that middle step and just take a B-12 supplement that is from bacteria. Same idea with protein; every food has some amount of protein, and animals that grow to be gigantic compared to humans are able to do it by eating a vegetarian diet. There's no reason we can't grow just as well on plant proteins.
2. What if plants have feelings or feel pain? Aren't you hurting them?
Well, it's possible. I haven't ever seen anything that made me think plants DO feel pain, since they don't react when we pick them or cut them up, but animals do. However, even if they do, by eating plants directly instead of feeding a huge amount of plants to an animal to get a small amount of food from that animal's flesh, I can eat the plants directly and use much less of them.
3. Why don't you concentrate on helping people instead?
I think it's possible to do more than one thing at once. Not eating animal products doesn't take much time. Neither does emailing petitions about reproductive rights, or volunteering to drive old people around, or teaching a cooking class for people who are transitioning out of homelessness. Obviously I can't fix everything all at once, but I can work on the things that speak to me and that I might be able to help with, and everyone else can do the same. Or not, it's their choice.
4. If you don't want to eat meat/milk/eggs anymore, why are you eating tofu dogs/soymilk/etc. then? Doesn't that mean you want to eat the real thing?
Of course I still like the flavors and textures I grew up eating. If this were just about me not eating foods I dislike, I don't think anyone would be questioning me very intently about it. No one cares that I don't like arugala, do they? What happened is that I learned about the suffering in those foods and didn't want to be helping that to happen, so I stopped. I just made a change, it doesn't mean that I suddenly hate everything I used to eat, or that it can't still look or smell tasty to me. It just means that now that I know what's behind that curtain, I can't participate anymore because it feels wrong to me. Luckily, if there's a food I miss, I can probably find or make a cruelty-free version. Yay!
5. Oh, so do you think you're better than everyone else now?
Nope. I feel lucky that something got through to me so that I could make this change, because I feel happy and peaceful about my food in a way that I never have before. And I know it took me a looooooooong time before I was willing to face up to the truth about the pain my eating animals was causing. I regret that, but I am mostly just feeling happy and blessed to have a choice about it now. I figure everyone else will get there eventually, and what I can do is be there to be helpful if they want to know more, and not pester them if they don't. Every person has their own "aha" moment and I don't want to screw up someone else's by shaming them instead of supporting them.
6. Okay, but how are you ever going to go anywhere? Won't you have to be a giant pain in the ass to eat out with? Are you going to drag me to gross restaurants?
Mostly what I'll do is try to find out ahead of time if a place has foods that I can order as-is off the menu. If the don't, I'll ask politely for what I need, be friendly, and tip well. If I really can't find anything, well, that's why I have a little lunchbox of snacks in my car all the time! I get pissy when I'm hungry, so I try to make sure to head that off at the pass so no one has to deal with me when I'm mean.
7. Can I eat this in front of you? or Ha ha, look what I'm eating, or Hey don't look over here at my STEAK!
You can eat whatever you want in front of me, I'm not the boss of you or your choices. If you're honestly asking to be considerate, thank you, and I'll give you an honest answer. Ha ha comments I'll probably just shrug and ignore, because I think you're making them because you're uncomfortable, and that makes sense, but again, that's none of my business. The "jokes" are probably my least favorite part of the whole public dining thing, just because it's so awkward for everyone and I feel embarrassed for you. You're usually much more charming and funnier than you are on this topic, so let's talk about something else that we'll all have fun talking about.
8. What if you're not perfect? What if something you ate had milk and you didn't know until later? Why are you still wearing your old leather belt?
I'm not and will never be perfect; I'm just learning this as I go and trying. If I mess up, I mess up - I can try to remember it for next time and try not to do it again. I didn't throw away all my old clothes and shoes because they aren't worn out. When they are, I'll replace them with non-animal ones, but for now, I have other things to spend money on.
Anyway, that's the main ones that have come up with people I spend time with. Feel free to add to the list or question any of them! :)
1. Don't you need meat to be healthy?
Nope. If you think about it, when you're eating animals and getting nutrients from them, they are mostly nutrients that the animals got from eating plants. So animals get B-12 from eating bacteria which is in dirt on their foods. People get it from eating the animals. You can skip that middle step and just take a B-12 supplement that is from bacteria. Same idea with protein; every food has some amount of protein, and animals that grow to be gigantic compared to humans are able to do it by eating a vegetarian diet. There's no reason we can't grow just as well on plant proteins.
2. What if plants have feelings or feel pain? Aren't you hurting them?
Well, it's possible. I haven't ever seen anything that made me think plants DO feel pain, since they don't react when we pick them or cut them up, but animals do. However, even if they do, by eating plants directly instead of feeding a huge amount of plants to an animal to get a small amount of food from that animal's flesh, I can eat the plants directly and use much less of them.
3. Why don't you concentrate on helping people instead?
I think it's possible to do more than one thing at once. Not eating animal products doesn't take much time. Neither does emailing petitions about reproductive rights, or volunteering to drive old people around, or teaching a cooking class for people who are transitioning out of homelessness. Obviously I can't fix everything all at once, but I can work on the things that speak to me and that I might be able to help with, and everyone else can do the same. Or not, it's their choice.
4. If you don't want to eat meat/milk/eggs anymore, why are you eating tofu dogs/soymilk/etc. then? Doesn't that mean you want to eat the real thing?
Of course I still like the flavors and textures I grew up eating. If this were just about me not eating foods I dislike, I don't think anyone would be questioning me very intently about it. No one cares that I don't like arugala, do they? What happened is that I learned about the suffering in those foods and didn't want to be helping that to happen, so I stopped. I just made a change, it doesn't mean that I suddenly hate everything I used to eat, or that it can't still look or smell tasty to me. It just means that now that I know what's behind that curtain, I can't participate anymore because it feels wrong to me. Luckily, if there's a food I miss, I can probably find or make a cruelty-free version. Yay!
5. Oh, so do you think you're better than everyone else now?
Nope. I feel lucky that something got through to me so that I could make this change, because I feel happy and peaceful about my food in a way that I never have before. And I know it took me a looooooooong time before I was willing to face up to the truth about the pain my eating animals was causing. I regret that, but I am mostly just feeling happy and blessed to have a choice about it now. I figure everyone else will get there eventually, and what I can do is be there to be helpful if they want to know more, and not pester them if they don't. Every person has their own "aha" moment and I don't want to screw up someone else's by shaming them instead of supporting them.
6. Okay, but how are you ever going to go anywhere? Won't you have to be a giant pain in the ass to eat out with? Are you going to drag me to gross restaurants?
Mostly what I'll do is try to find out ahead of time if a place has foods that I can order as-is off the menu. If the don't, I'll ask politely for what I need, be friendly, and tip well. If I really can't find anything, well, that's why I have a little lunchbox of snacks in my car all the time! I get pissy when I'm hungry, so I try to make sure to head that off at the pass so no one has to deal with me when I'm mean.
7. Can I eat this in front of you? or Ha ha, look what I'm eating, or Hey don't look over here at my STEAK!
You can eat whatever you want in front of me, I'm not the boss of you or your choices. If you're honestly asking to be considerate, thank you, and I'll give you an honest answer. Ha ha comments I'll probably just shrug and ignore, because I think you're making them because you're uncomfortable, and that makes sense, but again, that's none of my business. The "jokes" are probably my least favorite part of the whole public dining thing, just because it's so awkward for everyone and I feel embarrassed for you. You're usually much more charming and funnier than you are on this topic, so let's talk about something else that we'll all have fun talking about.
8. What if you're not perfect? What if something you ate had milk and you didn't know until later? Why are you still wearing your old leather belt?
I'm not and will never be perfect; I'm just learning this as I go and trying. If I mess up, I mess up - I can try to remember it for next time and try not to do it again. I didn't throw away all my old clothes and shoes because they aren't worn out. When they are, I'll replace them with non-animal ones, but for now, I have other things to spend money on.
Anyway, that's the main ones that have come up with people I spend time with. Feel free to add to the list or question any of them! :)