Thoughts about "Vegans are Not Annoying"

I've now been home three days and I am exhausted. I cleaned out the refrigerator yesterday and part of my room on Sunday. I gained a little weight when I got sick and wasn't excercizing, so I'm going to try to eat healthier. I love so many of the vegan "junk foods" that it is sometimes hard to remember to eat my green leafy vegetables in their natural form instead of covered in fatty cashews (kale chips, you know I'm talking about you).

I wanted to share an interesting article that I found on Facebook.

It's called Vegans are Not Annoying

I think many people do think than I am annoying because I choose to have a "restrictive" diet. (I don't agree that it is restrictive, because I no longer see animals as a viable food source, but others call it this.) They think that I am trying to make them feel bad about not eating healthily, or something. That's not what I'm doing. I don't eat meat and dairy because the thought of eating it makes me sick. I don't judge my family for eating their steaks and cheeseburgers. They can eat whatever they want, as long as they don't force me to eat it. I just make lots of my awesome vegan foods to share with them because they usually like them and eat most of it because it is tasty!

The tenth point in the article is my favorite: We can take a punch without releasing drama.

I find that most of the vegans and/or vegetarians I know are pretty laid back, pacifistic, and really don't care about what others think of them (at least not about the food they eat). And when others decide they need berate them for being vegan, most vegans just say, "I don't agree with (insert non-vegan thing here) because..." and don't get mad about it.

The article pointed out the people who will make fun of vegans for being "too skinny" and tell them they need to eat some protein. See this picture from the Vegan Sidekick to understand what I'm talking about. There are also people who point out to larger people that veganism obviously "isn't working" for them, since they are still fat.

Why do others feel the need to point out other people's physical appearance and criticize them for their life choices because of it? I think every time we do this to others, we are enforcing a negative body image on ourselves (because we obviously have some body image issues if we have to insult others to make ourselves feel better). I like to hope that people don't make judgments about me just on my appearance, but on how I live my life and how I interact with others.

I know my mom has been on the receiving end of nasty comments about her hair color and physical appearance. My mom has dark brown hair that is slowly getting a little grey. I think her hair is beautiful (I think grey hair is beautiful in general, but that's just me) and I don't understand why so many people think they have to point out to her that her hair is going grey like it is a bad thing. Or that she should dye it blonde. She's also had people tell her that the scars on her face where she has had skin cancer removed is ugly and that she needs to have surgery to make it look better. WTF! She just healed from having someone dig cancer out of her face and you are telling her that the scar is ugly and needs to have MORE surgery to make it look pretty? Or that her nose is going to fall off? (She literally had someone tell her that her nose was going to fall off from skin cancer once, because they had met someone with no nose. What a wonderful thing to say to someone who had to sit in a room and have their face carved on FOR HOURS. Not a nice thing to say!)

I know there are people that judge me for my weight or look at me funny when I say that I am vegan (because people still think that all vegans eat is celery and kale juice and that we are all skinny). Vegans are all ages, shapes, sizes, and fitness levels. Vegans are from all ethnic groups, religions, professions, countries, and ideologies. What unifies vegans is that we don't eat animals, whether for their sakes or ours, and we try not to add to the suffering of the world.

So, I agree with this article. Vegans are cool and happy and want to feed you because eating food is awesome (and believe me, some of the vegan creations I've made have been amazing!) and we like to eat food that doesn't make us hurt the next day. Spread the vegan message and eat some fruits!

I hope you enjoyed this post. (I apologize about the "protect mom from mean people" rant.) I would really love to hear what you think about it in the comments.