How to Politely Reject Anything As a Vegan
My vegan colleagues, it’s time to do something that keeps crowds of potential converts from joining our ranks – and lures even the most dedicated of us into illegal animal-based treason. No, these are not animal cheeses or America’s fetish love for bacon. It says no to free stuff.
Veganism is a lifestyle evolution designed to reduce your personal responsibility for the world’s cruelty and suffering and to get rid of the climate-destroying and resource- consuming meat and dairy industries. Obviously, this means not only a dietary change, but also the clothes you wear and the businesses you patronize.
And listen, I understand, some people find it difficult to plunge into the head! We all grew up in a meat-regulatory society, and it takes as long to break it down as it takes to stop using “he” as the default pronoun. Many people in your life will not understand this at first and will still offer you free food, souvenirs or other interesting gifts, unaware that the animal by-product industry has its bloody little fingers on everything from candles to soap. to milk powder, which can ruin a tempting bag of salt and vinegar potato chips.
So don’t expect everyone in your life or on your travels to immediately become an expert on your lifestyle, but you definitely shouldn’t be a jerk about that. A few simple tips will help you navigate the world of giving up free stuff without being considered an assertive vegan. Basically, you should be willing to satisfy your own needs instead of causing a moral stench because of it. You may even make a few conversions along the way.
First, find out what you really care about.
The path from the standard American diet to a plant-based lifestyle involves many steps, with labels such as flexitarian, pescatarian, weekday vegan, and only-eat-meat- you’ll -find-in-your-supermarket dumpster . The journey can be difficult (but it gets easier !), So if you’re somewhere along the way, congratulations! But you must find out what your ethical standards are before you can expect others to adhere to them.
For example, if you do not eat meat but wear leather shoes, your loved ones will not be able to correctly determine your position on the death of a cow without any help. Once you get on the road to an ethical stance (to me this is: animal husbandry seems like a pretty barbaric, ineffective and planet-destroying way of getting a sandwich in the 21st century when there are so many other things to eat), it’s easy to connect with others. And don’t be afraid to speak up.
“What I don’t want is for someone who is truly vegetarian to be unable to defend their preferences,” said Lizzie Post, co-president of the Emily Post Institute and co-host of the Awesome Etiquette podcast.
In my experience, you want to convey this to people in a way that doesn’t feel like a burden to them. Yes, the decision you make for the welfare of animals and the planet as a whole should not be seen as a burden on anyone, but meat normativeness is a hell of a drug and you are friends with agave more flies than with vinegar as the saying goes PETA. Do not come to a dinner party without first talking to the owner, do not throw up your hands in disappointment, even if there is cheese in the salad. This is a highly personal choice, not a fancy diet, so explain it this way.
Refusing gifts without being silly
Expected gifts (holidays, birthdays, etc.)
Holidays are that awful time of the year when your family insists on sending you bullshit, no matter how you protest. To make sure they don’t drop a bunch of animal products on your lap, it’s a good idea to talk to them beforehand.
“That’s when you have a lot of rights to hook up,” said Post, who herself switched to a predominantly plant-based diet.
Older friends and family may find it most difficult to understand plant-based lifestyles, especially when innocuous things like candles and gummy bears hide animal products, so one could simply suggest stores to shop at or place certain items to your wishlist. Post said.
“It’s always good to start this conversation in advance, to anticipate it,” she said. “Instead of saying, ‘Oh, you gave me another non-vegan item, thank you for noticing that I made a difference in my life.’ This is not the best answer to etiquette. “
If someone misses a misfire with a gift, don’t give the impression that they intentionally forgot. Set them aside later and thank them, but explain the dilemma. The post said it’s best to first see if the donor wants to return it or give it to someone else. According to her, if this is not an option, it is better to give a gift or give it to someone else who will use it.
“If you want to build blocks and move forward, you don’t often start by telling someone how wrong they have always been in the past,” she said.
Unexpected gifts
Gifts that come unexpectedly are a little more complicated. Even accepting something non-vegan as a way to avoid conflict can be a violation of your ethics, Post said. This is why, as previously mentioned, it is important to get on your feet before explaining yourself to others. Some people will find it okay to take a handmade wool blanket from a friend; others (like me) would rather not have animal products in our lives at all.
“From an ethical point of view, this still contributes to the need for animal products to be ordered and bought,” Post said. “The fact that someone bought a gift on your behalf starts to feel like they have already moved into the territory of the products that you are trying to eradicate in your own life.”
For example, last year at my main job, I was offered a free pair of limited edition Nike Air Max sneakers; I turned them down because they were leather, even when my friends called me a dummy and told me to just take them and throw them on eBay. I have not experienced any professional or social repercussions other than the fact that a similar pair is currently listed for sale on the site for $ 1,250, which I think is a sign that you care too much about the sneaker.
In case of an unexpected gift, confirm the gesture and discuss the problem with the donor later.
“You don’t want to embarrass someone in front of a table full of people,” Post said. A friend may want to return the gift and try again, or pass it on to someone else. Chances are, the gift was not meant to make you feel bad, so it should be greeted with generosity and appreciation. The Post notes that no one expects a person who does not drink alcohol out of sobriety or for religious reasons to accept a bottle of whiskey as a gift, so the same courtesy should be shown to vegans.
“People seem to embrace the religious barrier so willingly, and it upsets me because life choices are the same barrier that should be respected, even if it doesn’t come from God or similar text,” Post said. “I hope we can respect personal choices with greater respect.”
Giving up grandma’s lasagna
Here it is, the ultimate final boss for the new vegan: abandoning favorite family food traditions that you may have eaten your entire life up to this point. This becomes especially difficult with older relatives who understand the plant-based lifestyle in much the same way as current cryptocurrency trends.
Your first goal is not to lie to them: yes, it might seem easier to just tell your grandmother that you are allergic to dairy and meat, but this is ethically questionable and does not help spread your reasons for vegetarianism in other countries. peace if that’s one of your goals. (However, even if you don’t have allergies, it should also be noted that trying to eat animal foods after long-term rejection can cause serious damage to your body, and excluding from holiday foods can also become a digestive problem.)
Instead, Post said, interact with family or culinary traditions in other ways.
“You can always say, ‘Oh grandma, this is so great, I am so proud of our heritage, it smells so good, it reminds me of home,” she said. “You’re in a safe area to say,“ Unfortunately, because of the way I eat right now, I cannot eat it, but I’ll be so excited to see you eat it, or I’m just so happy to be sitting here. ” and chat “with you when you do.” “
At the very least, be prepared to take care of your own food needs and bring food for yourself as well as share (that’s the whole part of “not being a jerk”)! At its best, use this as a learning opportunity to demonstrate new alternatives to the ingredients you’ve learned about. I love to cook (and in any case I think I do it better than some of my family members), so I usually suggest to cook something myself in a family gathering or vegan my favorite family. For example, the ease of changing the oil in a recipe for Earth Balance is often met with a flutter with a saggy mouth, pushing a clown away at a birthday party to perform Jedi magic. A few days ago, I impressed Mom by introducing her to coconut milk ice cream as a filling for her traditional apple cobbler. Now she loves coconut ice cream all the time.
TRAVELS
No, being vegan when traveling is not rude.
There is a common view that maintaining a vegan lifestyle while traveling abroad is somewhat offensive and restrictive. By this logic, giving up free food or the customs you encounter on the road is a kind of abandonment of culture itself.
“They make bad travelers and bad guests,” Anthony Bourdain once told Playboy about vegans. “The idea that even before you go to Thailand, you say,“ I’m not interested, ”or that you don’t want to try what people take so close to their hearts, what they are so proud of and what they are so generous about, I don’t understand it and I think it’s rude. ”
Being able to choose where to get your nutrients is, of course, a privilege, but not one that should be seen as a burden on anyone else, no more than the privilege of traveling as such.
Bourdin’s comments (I’m not here to talk badly about the dead; Bourdain has done many good things to understand food consumption around the world) suggest that the only way to get to know a culture is not only its food, but also its animal food. “That’s not true,” said Caitlin Galer-Unty, founder of The Vegan Word travel blog and author of The Essential Vegan Travel Guide.
“Culture is much more than just food. But even food is not just meat, most cultures also have vegetable-based dishes, ”she said. She noted that we do not adhere to the same standards as meat eaters.
“If [omnivores] go somewhere that serves insect food, they won’t be happy to be part of it,” she said. “We also don’t tell people with celiac disease not to go to Italy because it would be rude not to eat pasta,” she said.
The Post agrees that it is normal to refuse food or other offers while traveling. On the part of the host, making guests feel uncomfortable or asking them to sacrifice their ethics is never proper etiquette.
“I totally disagree with Anthony Bourdain, whom I love and respect very much,” she said.
Instead of eating the animal food offered to you, find other ways to interact with culture, through art, music, architecture, or whatever else interests you. For me, these are bars: a good local diving or pub is a great place to sit for hours, soaking up the culture, chatting with patrons, drinking local beer and enjoying the travel.
I once spent an hour tipping at a pub in Salisbury, England, when the locals asked me questions about how dangerous Brooklyn was. When they passed their owner’s chicken pie, I politely declined and just ordered another pint instead, and no one was upset except for the guy I told him that, sorry buddy, my part of Brooklyn is not “very rough.” these days.
Do your research and get ready
The easiest way to avoid getting into situations where refusing to eat would be offensive is to not get into these situations from the very beginning. If you come across a place in China where, say, a centenary egg is an honorable delicacy, or you are invited to the traditional Torrablot ceremony in Iceland featuring lamb, perhaps skip them on your itinerary.
“I always tell people to do as much research as possible in advance and prepare before traveling,” Galer-Unti said. “It will save you a lot of awkward situations.”
Research can also prove that your destination may be more vegetarian than you thought.
On a recent trip to Romania, where there is still no strong vegan movement, Galer-Unti learned about the country’s Easter fasting traditions , which tend to avoid meat, dairy products and eggs. This means that the country already has the language and recipes needed to prepare delicious vegan dishes .
“There’s a whole vegan food tradition out there that most people probably don’t know about,” she said. “I ended up learning all these words related to fasting and fasting,” she said. Elsewhere, she contacted local vegans on Instagram and other pre-arrival travel blogs, who took her to grocery markets and other places to sample the local cuisine.
Before traveling to other countries, Galer-Unti will write in her native language a few basic phrases explaining her diet and what she will and will not eat. She also recommends traveling with a bag full of spare snacks in case you need something to fill the gap, especially if you find yourself in a bar for hours, lost in conversation with the locals. This is difficult for some travelers to understand, but you can share your adventure with the concept of food. Most vegans learn to be self-sufficient because we consciously worry about becoming a burden to others. It’s much easier to pack a sandwich to go than trying to hack a menu in another language to put together something that is adequate food.
I did it masterfully in September on a trip with a friend to visit a good friend in the majestic mountain oasis of Juneau, Alaska. My friend advised me in advance to at least try the fish again, because the city seems to feed on salmon, dried salmon, grilled salmon, salmon burgers and sometimes venison sausages. I of course laughed at his suggestion, stopped by the local health food store in the city center as soon as I arrived, and stocked up on a week of vegetables, field fries, local baked breads and more (which is nicely surprising!) With a selection of vegan treats. I ended up eating better that week than my fellow traveler, who had been complaining for most of the week that Juno’s food was just glorified bar food.
In general, giving up free should be treated with the same patience and understanding. Being a jerk is a good way to get all vegans to be labeled as jerks. It’s also a good way to never get free stuff again.