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Vegannoyances


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OK, thought I'd start a thread to talk about the day to day pet peeves (not the soul-wrenching awareness of tragedy) that come with being vegan. Here are some of mine...

 

1) Someone learns I'm vegan (or vegetarian, in my pregan days--did you notice I like combining words? ), and they say, "Oh, I've cut way back on red meat. I eat a lot of fish, chicken, and egg whites. I feel much healthier." Usually, it's in the middle of a conversation that I don't want to sidetrack into the cruelty aspect/talk about why I'm vegan; I don't have the time or inclination to educate at that moment. In addition, I suspect the person may not be ready to hear a "Let me tell you why that still sucks." At any rate, I just nod and say, "I'm glad you feel healthier." Then I feel like a sellout, but at least I didn't overtly congratulate them, which is what I think they were seeking.

 

2) When people hear me, SEVERAL TIMES, say the word vegan (rhymes with Keegan--thanks, Robert!), and they keep saying it like it rhymes with Megan. Guess what? If I have adopted a lifestyle, I likely know how to pronounce it, beeyatches!

 

3) Non-dairy creamer is not vegan. (Yeah, yeah, Silk is vegan, but what I'm saying here, people, is that even though I drink my coffee black, something that says non-dairy SHOULDN'T HAVE ANY FRIGGIN' DAIRY IN IT!)

 

4) When well-intentioned people assume that because I'm vegan, I also care more about other things than I actually do. Look, I support the environmental movement, and organic's great--but I don't buy organic unless it's comparably priced to non-organic, and this only happens when I get home from Costco and say, "Huh--the spring mix I buy every week is organic...and it costs less than the traditional spring mix at the supermarket!" I buy environmentally offensive particle board furniture from Target and Office Max because that's what I can afford. When I build up a surplus of plastic bags from the grocery store because I don't bring them back with me every time I go shopping and I can't reuse them fast enough, I throw them away. I once had a hairdresser offer me coffee, and then say, "Oh, I'm so sorry--of course you don't want coffee, you're vegan!"

 

?!?

 

"Well, coffee doesn't have animal products in it, so it's vegan."

 

"Yeah, but the whole back to nature thing."

 

"It's natural enough for me. I'll have a cup."

 

I'm glad people give me so much credit, but sheesh, I care about animal suffering above all else. Human rights, the ozone layer, and "getting back to nature" are second, third, and fourth tier, respectively. And I know many of you do a lot to help many causes, and rest assured that I admire that more than I can convey. I just don't like being put on a pedestal when in reality I'm right here on the ground with the rest of the world.

 

5) My husband's grandmother seems to have forgotten I'm vegan and had a dessert for us last time we visited. Fortunately, we'd just been to Sweet Tomatoes, and I said I was very full, which I was. Next time we get together, I'll say we'll bring the dessert. But I'm not sure how/if to talk about the vegan thing with her, because I DO appreciate the efforts she made and don't want to sound critical or unappreciative.

 

So...what annoys YOU in your day to day life? And have any of these 5 happened to you?

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"Vegans" that eat dairy/eggs from a friends farm are the most hypocritical same goes for honey. As for non vegans saying things I excuse them because for the moment they are too dumb to know any better.

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I hate it when people think "Vegan" means "Vegetarian who strictly eats organic", I've been asked if I can consume organic dairy products.....NO YOU MORON!

I never heard that before !

Or this one, "I'll only eat chicken if it's organic and free ranged".

My comment back is "Eat a whole free ranged organic vegetable instead, you big nugget"

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

That's all? I've got one at least... maybe more...

 

My biggest pet peeve is then people go vegetarian and then their egg consumption triples or quadruples. I have two examples:

 

  • The first is my friend who started eating a ton of eggs (and dairy) when he went vegetarian (shortly after I did the same). I finally had enough when he hate 3 or 4 hard-boiled eggs, a breakfast burrito chock full of eggs, and I think also a plate of scrambled eggs or an omelet all in one sitting. Right after dinner I made him watched HSUS video on factory farmed eggs. He was at a loss for words, and afterwards he cut back his egg consumption and started buying cage-free eggs (which I guess is better than battery cages to some degree). Apparently he's also bought a couple of vegan cookbooks as well. I'm living with him as well as a lactose-intolerant and her boyfriend during the next school year and my goal is to eliminate all animal products from our apartment. Why live, work, and play with vegans when you can convert the meat-eaters?
     
    The second one really bothered me. It's this girl I go to school with and was in my poetry class over winter term and in one of my political science classes during this past term. Our mutual friends kept telling me about how she would give them shit for eating meat (and chastising people is so counterproductive anyways). I almost blew up when she came back to the table one time with a plate of scrambled eggs piled probably 2 inches high. It was an obscene amount of eggs (not just offensive, but obscene). Typically I wouldn't go out of my way to do a favor for meat-eaters, but I told them to come find me when they got sick of her giving them shit about their meat-eating so she could find out where all of her eggs were coming from. She's more than a little on the heavy side too... I almost want to ask her if she thinks the reason she's not losing weight on a vegetarian diet is because she's eating the amount of eggs that a chicken lays in its entire lifetime at one sitting.

 

Eating out is also a pet peeve of mine. Not the eating out in and of itself, but the asking of questions. I typically just don't do it. I either avoid eating out, go to places with vegan options clearly labeled on the menu (or just vegan restaurants in general), go to restaurants that have all of the ingredients in a dish clearly labeled so I know what to have them hold, or use the fairly extensive culinary knowledge I obtained before going vegan to guess what things are or are not safe. I have a pretty good knowledge of things that include eggs or dairy, and anything I don't know well enough I just avoid altogether. That typically works for me, but occasionally I screw up and feel bad. One time I forgot to ask if they could hold the egg on my veggie fried rice... and just recently I went out to breakfast with my grandfather (the worst meal of the day for eating out). I ordered an English muffin with jam (vegan, of course), but when the muffin got to me it had had margarine melted on it. I'm under the impression that they don't use Earth Balance at that particular restaurant.

 

Another thing that bugs me is that people assume that compassion for animals is the only reason to be vegan, and they don't understand that there are many different philosophies that lead to veganism and that animals may be viewed differently depending on the philosophy of the person in question. It's not that compassion isn't one of my reasons for being vegan, but at best it's only equal to the health and environmental reasons that I'm vegan (especially since if we screw up the planet so bad that animals can't survive, then talk of veganism to show compassion for animals is kind of moot). My instinct is to deny the compassion argument altogether when the people I'm talking to either view compassion as a sign of weakness or if they assume that it's my sole reason for being vegan. I especially enjoy talking about cannibalism and when somebody chimes in that it's not very vegan of me I say "Why not? It's one of the most environmentally friendly things we could do. People die every day but we just throw them in holes at the same time we're killing animals for flesh that we could just as easily get from humans." or "I only extend my circle of compassion to non-human animals because they're the only ones that haven't done anything to justify not acting compassionately towards them." or something similar. Basically, it irks me if they think they know the details of your veganism.

 

And, now that I've written a book, I think I'll give someone else a turn.

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Just came back from a weekend of volunteering for this nature center that "educates" young people about environmental issues. Yet sitting at the supper table with these "environmentalists" eating steak, eggs, salmon, copious cheese, etc., etc., etc., made me want to scream.

 

I guess my biggest pet peeve is people who just stick things in their mouth out of habit or whatever without really thinking about what they're supporting by doing so.

 

When are people going to wake up?

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Just came back from a weekend of volunteering for this nature center that "educates" young people about environmental issues. Yet sitting at the supper table with these "environmentalists" eating steak, eggs, salmon, copious cheese, etc., etc., etc., made me want to scream.

 

I guess my biggest pet peeve is people who just stick things in their mouth out of habit or whatever without really thinking about what they're supporting by doing so.

 

When are people going to wake up?

 

Yeah... some friends of mine just went to a global warming conference in New York a few weeks back... and while the plan ride there wasn't the most environmentally friendly thing in the world... people were astonished that they were actually walking the walk instead of just talking the talk. I wasn't all that impressed by the few small things they did, but the fact that they were leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else there was kind of sad. Still a long ways to go...

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"5) My husband's grandmother seems to have forgotten I'm vegan and had a dessert for us last time we visited. Fortunately, we'd just been to Sweet Tomatoes, and I said I was very full, which I was. Next time we get together, I'll say we'll bring the dessert. But I'm not sure how/if to talk about the vegan thing with her, because I DO appreciate the efforts she made and don't want to sound critical or unappreciative.

 

 

You could bring the dessert, not tell her that it is vegan until she eats it and loves it, and then tell her how it has no eggs or dairy of any kind and let the conversation go from there!

Otherwise it will be an issue you have to go around everytime you get together and she will begin to wonder why you never try her dessert.

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Eating out is also a pet peeve of mine. Not the eating out in and of itself, but the asking of questions. I typically just don't do it. I either avoid eating out, go to places with vegan options clearly labeled on the menu (or just vegan restaurants in general), go to restaurants that have all of the ingredients in a dish clearly labeled so I know what to have them hold, or use the fairly extensive culinary knowledge I obtained before going vegan to guess what things are or are not safe. I have a pretty good knowledge of things that include eggs or dairy, and anything I don't know well enough I just avoid altogether. That typically works for me, but occasionally I screw up and feel bad. One time I forgot to ask if they could hold the egg on my veggie fried rice... and just recently I went out to breakfast with my grandfather (the worst meal of the day for eating out). I ordered an English muffin with jam (vegan, of course), but when the muffin got to me it had had margarine melted on it. I'm under the impression that they don't use Earth Balance at that particular restaurant.

 

I love to go out to eat, and farther more I love to ask all of the vegan questions, and then promptly walk out when I find out that they have something nasty in an otherwise veggie item. Enough people do this, and there will be more and more vegan options all of the time. Plus, when they get tired of answering the questions...they clearly mark what is vegan and veggie!

One place I called told me that so many other had called and asked for vegan food on the buffett and that I was the final call. the next day they decided to make everything that was vegetarian on the buffett vegan, from then on and they did! Another victory. That in itself cuts down on animal abuse and murder by quite a bit, considering how much food a daily buffett makes!

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I love to go out to eat, and farther more I love to ask all of the vegan questions, and then promptly walk out when I find out that they have something nasty in an otherwise veggie item. Enough people do this, and there will be more and more vegan options all of the time. Plus, when they get tired of answering the questions...they clearly mark what is vegan and veggie!

One place I called told me that so many other had called and asked for vegan food on the buffett and that I was the final call. the next day they decided to make everything that was vegetarian on the buffett vegan, from then on and they did! Another victory. That in itself cuts down on animal abuse and murder by quite a bit, considering how much food a daily buffett makes!

 

Yeah... but I'm way too independent... and hate having to depend on somebody else to find out the ingredients. That, and I'm always in the company of meat-eaters, so I kind of feel like I can't make that big of a fuss otherwise I give the impression that it's "way too hard to be vegan."

 

That, and I'm really bad at "secretarial-type skills"... i.e. phones, and phone-like conversations (getting information from people). But that's just a character flaw on my part...

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"5) My husband's grandmother seems to have forgotten I'm vegan and had a dessert for us last time we visited. Fortunately, we'd just been to Sweet Tomatoes, and I said I was very full, which I was. Next time we get together, I'll say we'll bring the dessert. But I'm not sure how/if to talk about the vegan thing with her, because I DO appreciate the efforts she made and don't want to sound critical or unappreciative.

 

 

You could bring the dessert, not tell her that it is vegan until she eats it and loves it, and then tell her how it has no eggs or dairy of any kind and let the conversation go from there!

Otherwise it will be an issue you have to go around everytime you get together and she will begin to wonder why you never try her dessert.

 

You know, we've actually done this before, and she's been impressed. She enjoyed Tofurkey, Soy Delicious ice cream, Fabe's chocolate cake, and other goodies...and we mention casually that there's no egg or dairy. Unfortunately, the conversation has never "gone from there," and I don't yet feel I have the "go-there privileges" to see that it does. She's always impressed with the tastiness of the food...but somehow, she still managed to forget. This is likely due, at least in part, to my history. Beware: the following is an account of me doing something that is annoying to some vegans! I have been vegan off and on since age 15. For a while during the time that I knew my grandmother in law, I was on-again, and soon was off-again (at that point in my life, I did find it too hard to stay vegan). I think maybe she did not forget but thought I was out of the vegan phase again...I know I brought this on myself somewhat. This time it's for keeps. Thank goodness for all the delicious and convenient vegan goodies out there! And perhaps one of these days, I will find a way to sensitively work the treatment of animals into the dessert conversation.

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