Wednesday, November 6, 2013

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.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

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.

Monday, November 4, 2013

World Vegan Month Tip #4


Framing veganism as a lifestyle of deficiency or denying oneself is not a good long-term success plan and it doesn't acknowledge the amazing abundance and countless positive benefits available to us. The next time you find yourself saying, "I can't eat this," or "I can't go there," think about how you are communicating veganism to yourself and to the world. We are so fortunate to be able to live in a time when we can live according to our values. We get to eat amazing, health-promoting, harmless food, we get to decide how we want to spend our money and time. Isn't that an incredible opportunity? Successful and effective long-term veganism happens when we no longer look at the world through the lens of lack and denial but through a clear-eyed perspective of gratitude, abundance and acknowledgement of this rare opportunity we have.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

World Vegan Month Tip #3


Don't leave yourself in the lurch! One of the best ways that you can ensure you can maintain your vegan aspirations is to make it easy for yourself. A simple strategy for this is to keep your kitchen well-stocked with items that can be used any time for making a quick meal, like pasta, soups, and so on.

Saturday, November 2, 2013

World Vegan Month Tip #2


Give your taste buds some time to adapt to healthier habits. "The longer we eat healthier foods, the better they taste," says Dr. Michael Greger in this short but informative video and the research backs up this claim. Many people claim to not like vegan food, but have they really given it a try?


World Vegan Month Tip #1


November is World Vegan Month so for the entire month, Vegan Street will be posting a new daily tip to help make veganism easier and more accessible to all. Daily tip #1 (sorry we missed yesterday): Be gentle with yourself while setting concrete goals. If your goal is to reduce consumption of animal products, figure out easy replacements, for example, almond milk in the place of cow's milk in your cereal. Keep finding ways to decrease or eliminate animal products and increase vegan foods. Setting realistic, specific goals rather than aspiring to something vague will get you closer to tangible results.