8 Things I’ve Learned Since Becoming a Vegan

Here are some lessons I’ve learned since converting to the dark side, becoming one of those “weird” hippie types, a vegan. I even did it while traveling abroad for a year, does it get more cliche than that? Probably. I’m aware of how delicious steak is for most people and I don’t mind if you sit two inches from my face and eat a bacon cheeseburger with eggs and babies and the blood of some religious deity etc. etc..My reasons for converting to a vegan diet vary from money-saving to fitness and further evolved into ethics and disgust with how corrupt and unhealthy the food industry can be.

               The American family unit hasn’t evolved very much

Any who, here are some simple, non-preachy things I’ve learned in the past year or so.

1. The general public, including people who work in the food industry, do NOT know what vegan means. The simple explanation I give is this: Nothing with a face, and nothing that comes from a face. People hear this and make things with butter in it by accident, whoops! The question I’m left with is how far should I go in preventing this. Do I say I’m deadly allergic and list out everything I don’t eat? Do I make a big deal about it? Do I send the food back and turn into the girl from The Poltergeist, complete with a spinning head and vomit everywhere?

Maybe that’s a bit of an                  overreaction

2. People ask why you’ve converted and sometimes follow that question with either a reason for why that wouldn’t work for them or how little meat they eat anyway. Some more hardened omnivores say it’s “the animals’ job/purpose to be eaten”. I think the most common response discusses that it’s a healthier choice but that cheese is simply too delicious. Praise be to Cheesus.

3. Living in major cities as a vegan is easy (from personal experience, Melbourne, Sydney, Bangkok, Ko Pha Ngan, Chiang Mai, and New York City are awesome). I’ve read articles about other great places too.

4. Oreos are vegan…kind of. All the ingredients are non-animal derived but it has cane/refined sugar in it and sometimes cane sugar is processed through animal bones. I read up on it and it sounds like it’s very, very hard to figure out if the sugar from your oreos was processed through animal bones. It’s so far removed from source that it’s considered kosher but not all vegans feel the same. So you can either hide from all products with cane sugar or hope for the best.

5. The worst thing you can ask a vegan is “where do you get your protein?”.

6. There is a big difference between vegetarians and vegans. Vegans are more strict than vegetarians. Vegetarians don’t consume animals (beef, chicken, sheep, fish, etc.). Some eat fish and are actually called pescatarians but label themselves vegetarians  (this drives me insane) . But I digress. Vegans don’t eat meat, but also don’t consume anything that contains honey, eggs, gelatin, dairy products (for which there is a long list), and even weird things nobody thinks of like certain food coloring that is made of crushed beetles. This is where the consumption list ends, but some vegans don’t wear any products that come from animals (think things like leather or cashmere) or use products that were tested on animals.

7. Nearly all the food you’re told you’re “missing out” on can be made vegan with a similar taste (all dairy products have replacements, tofu can become pretty much anything, desserts just ask for a bit of creativity). Vegan chocolate is actually pretty common for omnivores who enjoy dark chocolate and a ton of snacks are vegan as well. Thank you, all-knowing internet, for unlimited vegan recipes and youtube how-to’s!

8. Contrary to what South Park thinks, becoming a vegan does NOT literally turn you into a pussy.

Vaginitis is not a real thing