4 ms·

I went vegan for a few months and abandoned it because everyone else was unable to have a conversation with me about anything other than meat. Everyone felt an

I went vegan for a few months and abandoned it because everyone else was unable to have a conversation with me about anything other than meat. Everyone felt an unprovoked need to justify their eating habits to me. Social groups were uncomfortable picking a restaurant without asking if I was okay with it even though I would much prefer to just not eat and hang out with people. Without any comment from me, my eating habits became a constant source of discussion and concern. There just isn't any way to be politely vegan. Everyone else automatically assumes that you care why they aren't.

eps 12y ago
Not eating meat is easy to understand. What throws a lot of people off is vegans, unlike vegeterians, not eating eggs and cheese. That's really a doozy. It just doesn't make sense (and not that it implies that vegans care and non-vegans don't).
- DennisP 12y ago
  Some people are vegans for health reasons, based on books like The China Study. Others just think we don't treat our egg layers and dairy cows very well. (I'm not a vegan, and don't want to get into a debate over whether they're correct. I'm just saying they have their reasons.)
- tedks 12y ago
  Cheese is made from milk. Milk is produced by mammals that have recently given birth. Cows are not an exception. Every dairy product you have consumed is built from milk stolen from a calf. That calf is immediately separated from its mother, and usually shipped straight into a veal crate. If you consume dairy you support this. The mother is milked for as long as she can be, but eventually she'll need to be impregnated again. This is a traumatic experience, but it's not like animal agriculture industry tries to make it better. The devices they use are called "rape racks" in the industry. If your vision of dairy production is a straw-hatted farmer sitting on a three-legged stool milking Ol Betsy you're delusional. But you're also pretty common. Most people have the same sort of view of animal agriculture that non-technical people have about the Cloud.
mscarborough 12y ago
You stopped being vegan because you wanted to. Not exactly crushing social pressures. Been vegetarian or vegan for 17 years, it is pretty easy to go have a meal with friends and be polite.
- schoen 12y ago
  I have a feeling that the social context for veganism is extremely different, in a way that can be difficult to imagine, across different social groups (different cities, age cohorts, ethnic groups, social classes, religious backgrounds, etc.). Most of my friends are well-educated secular urban middle-class 30-year-olds who are somewhat left-wing by U.S. standards. Most of them know dozens of vegetarians and at least several vegans. On average, they seem to view my veganism somewhere on a spectrum from "mildly eccentric" to "extremely admirable". When I go to other countries, I'm more likely to meet people who are surprised that I'm vegan. Some of them say that they didn't know that that was possible (!) or that they have never met a vegan in person before. I have also met some vegetarians and vegans, mostly from immigrant families, who said that they had to hide their dietary practices from their families because their families would be so upset about it. (When I went vegetarian 26 years ago, my grandmother expressed a fair amount of concern for my health, although she'd at least met other vegetarians before.) I think it's easy to generalize from our experience about how other people "normally" react to particular dietary practices, but our experiences with people's reactions (positive, negative, confused, hostile, indifferent, curious) may be a narrow local view. One time I had a discussion in Latin with a Catholic priest who worked at the Vatican. (I don't speak Italian and he doesn't speak English, so Latin was our best common language.) When he learned that I didn't eat animals, he cited Genesis 9:3 as a reason that vegetarianism was faintly ridiculous. It took me a minute or two to understand that he was absolutely, completely serious.
- scarecrowbob 12y ago
  Well, I dunno, maybe you run in different circles than I do-- I have some good vegan friends, and have been vegan for periods in my past. I've had a lot of good times and meals with vegans. But I also live in a rural Texas town, and when I was in college, yes, there were very real social pressures not to be vegan, from family to social groups. It is easy enough to just discount these pressures, but like most choices that marginally impact the folks around you (what are you really going to order at the steakhouse where you've gone for your brother graduation? Oh you're just gonna not eat? "How fucking rude", says your uncle.) these force are real and impact folks choices.

eps 12y ago

Not eating meat is easy to understand. What throws a lot of people off is vegans, unlike vegeterians, not eating eggs and cheese. That's really a doozy. It just doesn't make sense (and not that it implies that vegans care and non-vegans don't).

DennisP 12y ago
Some people are vegans for health reasons, based on books like The China Study. Others just think we don't treat our egg layers and dairy cows very well. (I'm not a vegan, and don't want to get into a debate over whether they're correct. I'm just saying they have their reasons.)
tedks 12y ago
Cheese is made from milk. Milk is produced by mammals that have recently given birth. Cows are not an exception. Every dairy product you have consumed is built from milk stolen from a calf. That calf is immediately separated from its mother, and usually shipped straight into a veal crate. If you consume dairy you support this. The mother is milked for as long as she can be, but eventually she'll need to be impregnated again. This is a traumatic experience, but it's not like animal agriculture industry tries to make it better. The devices they use are called "rape racks" in the industry. If your vision of dairy production is a straw-hatted farmer sitting on a three-legged stool milking Ol Betsy you're delusional. But you're also pretty common. Most people have the same sort of view of animal agriculture that non-technical people have about the Cloud.

mscarborough 12y ago

You stopped being vegan because you wanted to. Not exactly crushing social pressures. Been vegetarian or vegan for 17 years, it is pretty easy to go have a meal with friends and be polite.

schoen 12y ago
I have a feeling that the social context for veganism is extremely different, in a way that can be difficult to imagine, across different social groups (different cities, age cohorts, ethnic groups, social classes, religious backgrounds, etc.). Most of my friends are well-educated secular urban middle-class 30-year-olds who are somewhat left-wing by U.S. standards. Most of them know dozens of vegetarians and at least several vegans. On average, they seem to view my veganism somewhere on a spectrum from "mildly eccentric" to "extremely admirable". When I go to other countries, I'm more likely to meet people who are surprised that I'm vegan. Some of them say that they didn't know that that was possible (!) or that they have never met a vegan in person before. I have also met some vegetarians and vegans, mostly from immigrant families, who said that they had to hide their dietary practices from their families because their families would be so upset about it. (When I went vegetarian 26 years ago, my grandmother expressed a fair amount of concern for my health, although she'd at least met other vegetarians before.) I think it's easy to generalize from our experience about how other people "normally" react to particular dietary practices, but our experiences with people's reactions (positive, negative, confused, hostile, indifferent, curious) may be a narrow local view. One time I had a discussion in Latin with a Catholic priest who worked at the Vatican. (I don't speak Italian and he doesn't speak English, so Latin was our best common language.) When he learned that I didn't eat animals, he cited Genesis 9:3 as a reason that vegetarianism was faintly ridiculous. It took me a minute or two to understand that he was absolutely, completely serious.
scarecrowbob 12y ago
Well, I dunno, maybe you run in different circles than I do-- I have some good vegan friends, and have been vegan for periods in my past. I've had a lot of good times and meals with vegans. But I also live in a rural Texas town, and when I was in college, yes, there were very real social pressures not to be vegan, from family to social groups. It is easy enough to just discount these pressures, but like most choices that marginally impact the folks around you (what are you really going to order at the steakhouse where you've gone for your brother graduation? Oh you're just gonna not eat? "How fucking rude", says your uncle.) these force are real and impact folks choices.