Of course it's a common "harmless" topic to discuss what you ate at some restaurant or what new recipe you tried. So, if coworkers start talking to you about this, what do you do? I'm fairly new so I don't want to be like, "ACTUALLY I'M VEGAN." Cause then people might take offence and feel guilty and start disliking me and I end up losing my job. I already got unfairly dismissed from two previous jobs, for unrelated reasons. I want to keep this one.

EDIT: I would also like to remind everyone that yes, I understand veganism is a philosophical viewpoint, and I do choose to live my life and purchase things that are vegan (no leather, no child labor, etc). This post is just focusing on the diet aspect.

EDIT 2: Thank you to the wonderful vegans who helped me understand that my viewpoint was well intentioned but not helpful, I deleted the post so I do not encourage that behavior

I made a post earlier today asking about ethical consumption, and I was met with a variety of responses. Some people said it was a step in the right direction, while others resorted to insults.
I now have another question: If the goal of veganism is to stop the exploitation of animals, why would you use insults to persuade people to change their ways? Insulting people is known to be extremely ineffective and can often be counterproductive, causing people to do the opposite of what you want them to do. Wouldn’t that go against the goal of veganism? If insulting people makes them less likely to change their behavior, then you aren’t reducing animal exploitation and could potentially be contributing to more of it and wouldn’t that technically make you not vegan

If you do not use insults when advocating for veganism then this post is not about you

Our 6 month old daughter, Aurora, is in the Baby of the Year contest! We’re raising her with compassion for all animals, and if she wins, we plan to donate the $25,000 prize to an animal charity that rescues calves from the dairy industry (till the cows come home).
If her little story resonates with you, we’d be so grateful for your vote 🐮💚

Edit: The title is supposed to say “tastes” not tasted lol

Me 18F and my sister 14F are born on the same day 4 years apart. Our birthday is in a month. I’ve been vegan for a month now (I was vegetarian before going vegan) and my sister still eats animals. Before going vegan I baked a lot so obviously now I’ve switched to vegan baking. My bakes taste exactly the same as before, you honestly can’t tell that they’re vegan. I will make my own vegan birthday cake for my birthday and I offered for my sister that I make hers too (she wanted a separate cake). Here the drama begins.

She says “no, I want a normal cake baked by mom.” We go back and forth, my argument being “why wouldn’t you choose a vegan cake when it tastes the exact same and me and my mom are perfectly capable of making it taste amazing without involving animal cruelty.”

Her argument “it’s my special day and I want to be able to choose my own cake”. It’s only one day of the year, after that we can go back to eating your vegan stuff. I’m already eating so much more vegan things because of you so why can’t my birthday be an exception?”

I totally understand that. It’s just, why wouldn’t she want to choose a cruelty free alternative to a delicious cake when she can??? I just cannot wrap my head around it. She loves my vegan bakes. She eats them all the time. I don’t want my birthday to be shared with a cake made with eggs and dairy. It made me quite sad that I couldn’t change her mind. At her age I was vegetarian already.

I’m not sure I want to celebrate my birthday with non-vegan food items. That’s important to me, like how having a cake made with suffering animals is important to her I guess🙄. I might just do a separate birthday thing.

Thanks for listening guys.

Updatee: we talked it over and she saw how sad I was over it and we might do a vegan cake anyways. I told her it’s her decision I won’t force anything on her and she told me she doesn’t want me to be sad and she dint know it would make me so upset. So we are not mad at each other and we’ll figure it out.

TLDR; sister doesn’t want vegan birthday cake when I am a very good baker and my vegan cakes taste exactly the same as non vegan ones.

Hi all

Very new vegan here (about 3 months in), so still navigating new experiences. I went to a wedding this weekend where I requested a vegan option, but when I got there it was an Indian buffet where literally everything had dairy in it other than plain rice and salad. I just ate those things but got many comments from people on my table and didn't really know what to say without embarrassing the bride and groom. I am aware they should have catered for vegans when requested, but at the same time, I don't want to embarrass the wedding couple on their special day for a mistake.

What would you do? It's made me realise I need to also take snacks to weddings in case this happens again, but not sure how to navigate this socially. Any advice welcome!

TW gore movies

Hi, lately i've been wanting to look into 1980-2000 japanese horror films. Those are supposed to be really gore. I'm scared to watch those because what if the flesh used is real flesh from animals ? After all those films have practical effets, not special effets.

Do you have any infos ?

Latex and makeup can do a lot for sure but if i think about films like Su*c*de Club, i don't think they would be enough... And as a vegan i don't want to see poor animals corpses

Thanks

you go to a restaurant and see they have vegan options , cool. Then you look and all it is is cauliflower tacos or cauliflower “wings”. Bro you are taking the blandest vegetable in existence and trying to make it the main ingredient. At least if you used broccoli or some other vegetable it has sweetness and flavor.

Then when people think of vegan food they think were eating cauliflower. No matter how you bread it or batter it and fry it its still bland. Let cauliflower be the side ingredient that it is and have seitan as a vegan option ffs. People act like vegan food is bland but all they know is unmarinated unseasoned tofu and cauliflower abominations

As the title say I was trying to go vegan, I mean it would be very hard for me but I think it would help my body and also dieting in many ways, but my main reason would be the "water crisis" that apparently we'll face in 2030 (apparently it's not 100% true? I don't know because there's many different opinions and different papers say different things.)

I do know that there are many causes, not only AI, and apparently the meat industry uses a lot of water.

Which now brings me to ask these two questions.

1) how much does the "vegetable industry" if I can call it like that actually uses in water? Why does the meat industry uses so much? Where does it actually go? The water the meat industry uses is a drinkable clean water or a recycled one?

2) even if I start to go vegan how can it truly help? I mean meat is still going to be produced, they make it in masses, if I don't buy some at the supermarket someone else will. Does my choice truly contribute to something?

Sorry for these types of questions and thank you, if you want, for answering❤️

Field Mouse-
I guess I can’t expect for someone that isn’t vegan and doesn’t ascribe any meaning to the conscious life of an animal to care about a trapped field mouse.
A family member caught a mouse, in their house, with “no-kill” traps. While they’re waiting to take him/her away from the area (so they don’t return) they’re “letting them starve until they have somewhere to go”.
I still see this as inhumane! I wonder if the “no kill” is just for show or for some sense of humanity alleviating personal guilty feelings.
I can already hear the respond to my question- “it’s not my house”, “mind my own business”, “isn’t it good enough the mice didn’t die?”. I just hate that the mere suggestion of feeding him/her while trapped in the box is seen as so ridiculous.
Okay, you’re letting him:her out into a field where they don’t know anyone, away from their family, they’re alive, but alone.
That’s not bad enough? The alternative isn’t to allow mice to just roam free and pick at whatever they want. I’m not suggesting an open invitation for mice in their house.
With the somewhat conscious choice of a “no kill” trap, wouldn’t be too far fetched to feed and water the trapped mouse before letting into the wild miles from the house of origin?
I know they’re pesty, but should they “starve” until they’re cast away?
All I can think about is “he/she is probably hungry”. That’s why they scavenge in a human house anyway.

Non-vegan here. I’m wondering why the concept of ethical consumption isn’t considered a good practice here and why it isn’t encouraged in this subreddit. From my perspective, it seems like a good middle ground. Considering that most people are unwilling to become vegan, if the point of veganism is to prevent and minimize the amount of suffering animals endure, wouldn’t it make more sense to encourage more minimal and ethical consumption rather than pushing for complete abstinence, since the vast majority of people are unwilling to do that?

She is very against veganism (says it is a mental disorder - know that from other people). We don't get along well, obviously.

Boyfriend and I are invited to the wedding and we will go, but if there are no vegan options I think I might leave and break that bridge. What would you do?

Restaurants / Catering here are very often not offering vegan stuff. So she would have to go out of her way. Last time we ate at theirs she got vegan spreads for us though. So maybe there will be vegan food.

Edit: Just to make it clear because there were many comments. It is a "surprise" wedding. None of the guest know it is a wedding, I just know bc of a relative, no rspv or anything. It is a "chill" birthday party, invites came through whatsapp. The wedding is a bad idea bc her soon to be husband is contemplating to leave her every 4 months and cheating. They already have kids and are together for 18 years lol.

This will clearly raise some pulses but honestly I can't be genuine with non-vegans at all and I suppose nor can they. When you think about it, people in the world always wear a mask and open up only to very select few people - that's not my idea of humanity. We don't all have to be close friends but vegans evidently are much more welcoming towards one another.

I'm not trying to start an argument about this topic. I know there are people with strong opinions about this, and I respect that. I just want to get more educated about it, and this seems like the best place for that.

For a long time now, I've heard that faux leather is worse for the environment than real leather products. Because it's basically plastic. I also heard that leather is a byproduct of the meat industry, so it's not like the animal is being raised for that purpose. HOWEVER, I clearly understand that there's still an animal that suffered and died, and at the end of the day, we're wearing somebody's skin. If we really think about it.

At this point, I'm just trying to make the best decision. I don't mind buying a cheaper faux leather option (compared to real leather). I have some shoes that lasted me for a long, long time. I just don't know at this point what the best environmental choice is.

Is buying secondhand real leather a good option? Since we're not directly contributing to the demand?

ps: I am not vegan, that's why this is still a question for me. Once again, I'm trying to learn <3

Anyone else bothered by others making this comment?

i notice myself getting frustrated when i hear this, because it implies that my plant-based behaviour isn’t a choice. It implies that I’m following some sort of “rule” against my own desire. It ignores the fact that each time I decide not to eat an animal product, I am making a choice.

A secondary question: what are the emotions and motivations when people say this? I’m curious to hear the perspective of someone who used to or currently makes these kind of comments.

Hi all! It’s that time again where I need to get a new car on PCP. I’d really love an automatic as I drive a lot for my job but it’s not essential.

I’m really struggling to find a vegan interior car in my budget. I’ve seen a couple where the seats look like fabric but the steering wheel is leather. I’ve also googled vegan cars (there’s a list on PETA’s website) and then when I look on the specs on AutoTrader, it turns out there’s leather in them so that’s highly frustrating and misinformation.

Can anyone recommend a car make/model that is entirely vegan? Thanks!

Hello vegan friends,

I don't usually post here but I don't really have any vegan friends that would understand what I'm feeling so I wanted to vent and get support from the community <3.

I was at a friend's house this weekend and had an interesting conversation around consciousness, life, existentialism etc, to which I eventually brought up animal consciousness (my bad I guess...).

My friend felt that animals are not conscious because they don't question their own existence. And if they're not conscious (by that definition), then exploiting them the way that we do is completely justified.

While I appreciate my friend for being honest with me, I'm really struggling with that perspective. I don't really know why that matters in the context of suffering -- you don't need to question your own existence if you are able to suffer (and oh do animals suffer so...). How can someone really think there aren't any red flags with this thought-pattern whatsoever? How can my friend who is one of the kindest people I know, who puts everyone ahead of his own self, always helping as much as he can, etc. truly feel this way?

In most cases, the non-vegans I've chatted with have acknowledged that the way we treat and exploit animals suck, and we should do better to minimize their harm, but this outright justification and rationalization is something I find really horrifying. It makes me think of supremacy and ego -- that we measure life in terms of what we humans perceive to be what's most valuable, based on our own species' experience -- and that anything that doesn't line up with that is lesser than/not worthy of moral consideration.

Please don't tell me I need to axe my friend, that's now why I came here and not something I want to do.

If anyone also has any advice on how to handle conversations like this, or help me overcome this horrible feeling I'm feeling, I'd be most appreciative.

Thanks everyone here for caring, knowing that people out there care makes me feel a bit better already.

Intellectually I recognize that veganism is ethically correct. But I have a hard time actually sticking to it because I have been so conditioned to compartmentalize and justify concepts of animal cruelty that I have a hard time getting myself emotionally invested. I keep finding myself falling into the habits I grew up with and then afterward thinking "I really shouldn't have done that, I know better." But in the moment it genuinely doesn't cross my mind because the emotional investment just hasn't clicked. I end up falling into the path of least resistance more often than not. I want to change that.

Have any of y'all struggled with overcoming that conditioning? How did you get emotionally invested in veganism? I want to start actually feeling guilty/empathetic enough to consistently pause and consider my choices. I want to stop feeling like its a chore and stop being envious of non-vegan people. Can y'all help a girl out?

Lifelong meat eater here. I dated a vegan awhile ago and I’ve come to realize my ex was pretty much right about everything. I always respected veganism and liked eating vegan food but never had any intention of going vegan for myself.

When we were together there was almost always a tension surrounding our eating habits. I was fully supportive of the vegan lifestyle for my ex and would eat with them but would also eat meat as well. We would have conversations around the meat industry and how unethical it is. I would mostly agree with their points but also didn’t really care that much and would continue to eat my food. For awhile we tried to avoid the topic but overtime it became too difficult to ignore. Our dietary differences were certainly a factor in the breakup but it was also due to lack of communication and other things.

Since we broke up I’ve basically thought about my ex everyday, despite having dated several other people since then. Honestly, they’re the only person I’ve ever loved and I still miss them a lot. (It doesn’t help that they are objectively gorgeous and 100% my type :/ ) My ex often pops into my head whenever I eat meat, and at first I attributed this only to not being over them but I realized it was more than that. I now kinda feel guilty when I eat meat and have continued having conversations with one of my friends who is in the process of going vegan. I can see how evil the meat industry is and linked with capitalism, health disparities, and other social injustices I care about.

The problem is, I don’t really know where to go from here… Truthfully, I still don’t necessarily desire to be vegan. It seems extremely daunting and kind of lonely as all my family and the vast majority of my friends eat meat and aren’t very welcoming of vegans. It also would be such a massive change for me as someone who eats meat atleast twice a day. I’d appreciate any advice or thoughts on what to do next.

hello, this is my first post here :) a little ago I was talking with someone about handling infestations. I had a bad fruit fly infestation a while back and I ended up having to spray them. They told me it was inconsistent of me because I'm supposed to care for animals and not want them to die. I am a vegan of 2 years now, yet I don't deal with this stuff often enough to know what's right. Please tell me your opinions and how I should deal with any kind of bug/rodent infestation in the future :) I usually let bugs chill unless it gets out of hand

It’s really sad to think about how animals seen as less valuable as a commodity, or less attractive, are the ones bred for larger portions of meat, feathers or fur.
The past few days I just can’t get it out of my head , “why don’t people breed and eat parakeets?” I’m sure some place in the world they test on them or use them for something.
When we’re discussing animal product ingredients, some of the collagen and body parts from chickens and other animals are used for a variety of products.
Just as we in the vegan community ask questions about other “considered pets” animals that aren’t viewed in any way similarly as cows, sheep, goats, chickens, and pigs.
Would anyone feel differently about skinning a crocodile if they were cuddly and friendly or played “fetch”?
I’m also upset with myself for not realizing this earlier. It’s been several years without any meat from anything that had eyes, and two years without dairy and other additives. It took me that long to continue “researching” and ignoring the truth.
For me, personally, there’s no going back from what I know now. I look at these little creatures, and think “how are they different from the ones society decided are okay to be electrocuted and slaughtered, teeth pulled and tails twisted?” For non-vegans to just think of their favorite animal and imagining their confinement and imminent torture and death.
Maybe they would change their mind.

Hi Ingrid Newkirk,

Check this shit:

https://youtube.com/shorts/yY1tRen--9U

Bitch.

Anoushavan,

PS: The asshole Pia Shazar isn’t even a sociologist. That fucking bitch, it’s manipulation from start to finish. Truth. Suck it.

Hi there!

This might be long but maybe someone wants to listen to me.. I just feels very disappointed and also a btif frustrated bc I wanna help her find her way back..

My mom used to be vegan for a few months over a year ago and I thought it was great. She even said she was probably healthier back then.

She said she watched some videos and immediately became vegan, not even just vegetarian. She was pretty full on on that vegan train. We used to have chicken before in our old home and I asked her "so if we had a nice, huge garden again, would you still want chicken again?" and she said no and explained to me why (I knew why, just asking)

So she definitely knows the morals and agreed with them etc.

I was really happy because for over a decade I was the only vegetarian and then vegan person, in my family.

After a few months she started eating like before again. When I asked her why, she said she feels really bad but she misses the taste and it's also easier, especially getting around outside etc..

I'm so disappointed.

I'm usually eating "naturally vegan" food, so no tofu or "fake" products etc. But when we started getting more and more substitutes in my country, I was curious and wanted to try out some cheezy sausages.

It actually tasted quite good. It tasted pretty legit which actually disgusted me a little bit but it's still nice to have from time to time. The constancy is a tiny bit off but not much. I told my mom to try but she was very disgusted by it and said she doesn't like those processed things and she's scared of it or whatever, like she had huge reactions about it?! (my partner is kind of the same but at least tries after making some disgusted faces)

Even my brother tried and he said it's not bad and if he didn't knew it was vegan, he would just think it tastes a bit different but not really that it's fake.

I told my mom that her meat etc is also highly processed and like she prefers eating dead animals and all rather than this?! And she keeps trying to make me stop talking Bc she doesn't wanna hear it. She knows exactly how much she is in the wrong but doesn't want to be confronted so she doesn't feel so bad.

She even tried a specific kind of "cold cuts/sliced sausage" (??) and said she was surprised it tasted exactly like the real thing and she actually liked it.

So idk why she's so scared and avoidant..

I don't even like meat taste and try those things..

She might now go more and more back into a vegan diet because of her health but she told me for coffee she still wants cow milk tho because it tastes better for her and yeah meat sometimes etc. But yeah bc of her health she has to eat more vegan now anyways.

I just wish it was really more because of moral reasons.. Also that she'd just freaking try the other products if she misses the meat taste..

I know this was pretty long but I just felt like I had to vent..

Maybe someone has similar experience with family or friends?

I first went veggie when I was about 15. My reason why??? The girl I had a crush on said she liked it when people were vegan or vegetarian.

The most ironic part is that she was and still is a meat eater herself.

I became vegan when I was 19 due to environmental and ethical reasons, but I don’t think I ever would’ve got there or been as open minded to it if I wasn’t veggie first.

I just thought about it whilst eating my vegan meatballs and was like “damm… it all links back to that moment”

She may have broken my heart back in the day, but at least something good came from it 😂

Hi, I have a couple of thoughts about animal testing that has been consuming my anxiety filled brain lol. I would just like some opinions on this.

1. Medication
   I unfortunately need to take medication. But I hate the fact that most are tested on animals. What can I do to end animal testing while still needing medication?

2. Food
   It seems like that even food is no exception. I’ve read that most synthesized foods have been tested on animals. Even protein powders (correct me if I’m wrong) even if there are food brands that don’t use animal testing, how to know which one do and which ones don’t? (I live in the Netherlands btw)

So yeah, I’ve just recently transitioned to being vegan, and these questions have just been spiraling in my head.