Vegan Street World Vegan Month Tip #10

Figuring out shortcuts in the kitchen is a great strategy for success and makes a fresh, whole foods diet more within reach. Keeping things like certain frozen items (like peas and corn) on hand means that we can always make a soup or jazz up some pasta; throwing potatoes in the oven when something else is cooking means that we will have those ready for a future meal and we're not wasting as much gas.

Vegan Street World Vegan Month Tip #9

Give yourself time to reconnect with nature. Sometimes we can become so involved our important work that we forget to re-charge ourselves with this amazing source of meditation and inspiration. Even a twenty minute walk can be all you need to nourish your spirit.

Vegan Street World Vegan Month Tip #8

(I posted this on Facebook yesterday but forgot to repost here. oops!) A simple way to build a good deed into your regular day is when you go to the thrift store, pick up some towels and blankets that are in good condition to donate to your local animal shelter. Maybe donate some cruelty-free laundry detergent, too. For not much money and effort, you can do a lot of good.

Vegan Street World Vegan Month Tip #7

 

Think of your advocacy time as planting seeds rather than having an expectation of creating immediate transformations. We can only present our message in the most compelling way possible; it is up to those who receive our message to process it according to where they are on their own path. Expecting people to change because of us is about our ego; people are not marks we should check off as accomplishments and no one likes to feel like they've got a target on them. If we focus instead on being considerate, engaged and engaging communicators and listeners, we will be far more effective advocates for the animals.

World Vegan Month Tip #6

Find community. An essential key to successful long-term veganism seems to be creating a supportive community around yourself. As most of us don't have families that understand or often even support our values, it is important for us to have a community that does understand and support us. Finding camaraderie through Facebook groups, local vegan meet-ups and potlucks can help us to feel less lonely and more connected.

30 Things That Won’t Happen Just Because You Went Vegan

No promises, though. 


1. You won’t fall over and die, at least not because you went vegan.

2. You won’t live forever, either.

3. You won’t suddenly become a supermodel if you weren’t one before you went vegan.

4. You won’t become a misanthrope. Probably. If you keep aggravating us, though, there are no promises.


5. You won’t get a vegan police badge.

6. Unless you do. It’s completely optional.

7. You won’t suddenly start wearing lettuce leaves for clothing.

8. Oh, god. I swear, this is not required.

9. You won’t face off against the Paleos, snapping your fingers and doing dramatic dance moves a la the Jets vs. the Sharks from West Side Story. It’s fun to imagine this, though.

10. You won’t lose your sense of humor, I promise.

11. You won’t get fat.

12. You won’t get skinny.

13. You won’t force omnis to try your cashew cheese and stand over them with a creepy smile until they tell you they like it. At least, you’ll try to not smile creepily.

14. You won’t transform your vehicle into a mobile bumper sticker display unit.

15. Unless you do just that.

16. You won’t have daydreams about Ted Nugent going hunting with a tipsy, trigger-happy, near-sighted Dick Cheney. Necessarily.

17. You won’t roll your eyes reflexively every time you discover that someone who calls himself a vegan eats fish “occasionally.” You will just never associate with him again.

18. You won’t develop Gummy Mouth Syndrome from eating nutritional yeast straight out of the tub. Necessarily.

19. You won’t walk around the farmers market trying to find shots that will be the most impressive with the vintage-y filter on Instagram. Necessarily.

20. You won’t stamp a vegan message on all your dollars.

21. You won’t because it’s just as easy and more personal to write it out by hand.

22. You won’t strike up conversations with random strangers at the tofu-tempeh-seitan section of the grocery store. You will strike up conversations in the produce section, the bulk aisle, the check-out aisle and the tofu-tempeh-seitan section. Oh, sometimes the meat counter, too, when you’re feeling feisty.

23. You won’t necessarily have your LDL/HDL ratio and blood pressure committed to memory in case you have the occasion to bring them up in a debate. You may just have it written down somewhere you can easily access at any time.

24. You won’t plan your vacations around food. You will plan your whole life around it.

25. You won’t get all excited when you find out that a celebrity is vegan. You know that you are only setting yourself up for crushing disappointment if you do.

26. You won’t sit out your family’s Thanksgiving meal in protest. You will go so they can look at you in the face as they shove body parts, mammary secretions and ovum into their faces.

27. You won’t dress in potato sacks and hemp sandals.

28. Unless you really want to do that.

29. You won’t have a constant bowl of cashews soaking. I mean, if you have a nut allergy you won’t.

30 You won’t have a panic attack when the only bananas at the grocery store are phosphorescent green. You won’t because you already have three bunches of back-up bananas in various stages of ripeness at home, not counting the ones that are already in the freezer.

 Who runs out of bananas? Amateurs.

World Vegan Month Tip #5

Give yourself permission to take "time outs" when you are starting to feel overwhelmed. Being aware of the needless suffering and slaughter done to billions of innocent animals each year can be very painful and overwhelming to know about, which can lead to burn out. Better yet, vow to take care of yourself before burn out begins by always feeding your spirit with the things that nourish you: see movies, take time to walk in nature, meet a friend for dinner, revisit some old hobbies. We cannot help the animals if we become so overwhelmed that we disengage. Take care of yourself! You are important and you deserve it.