Asklemmy

My sister in law is vegan. She is the most normal person about it I've ever met. She doesn't talk about it unless it comes up in conversation in a normal way.

She doesn't proclaim it, because its part of who she is it isn't the whole of who she is. She also understands that other people's choices are theirs and she doesn't need to convert them, or defend her own position.

When we have family gatherings, we try to accommodate with food offerings, but she says we don't need to and always brings her own food and extra to share. This is important because she's self sufficient and doesn't expect anybody to adjust their life to match her choices. Likewise, between diets and allergies we as a family just always ensure people know what is in what.

These are just simple examples. My point being, I don't think of her as vegan. I think of her as my sister in law. Be a normal person and its all good. If its not, then that's not on you. There are jerk vegans and jerk non-vegans. Don't be a jerk. Don't tolerate jerks in return.

accept the fact that, even if it works for you, not everyone would be willing to switch to that lifestyle. And that's ok!

The same way you be a "good religious person" - don't fucking proselytize. It's your choice, and that's great, but you don't need to force it onto others.

I know a lot o vegans, they are all chill. On their daily life, to be vegan is a a non-issue, for themselves and others.

On social events we generally have some extra options to accommodate them, and that's it.

So, for yourself, you probably need to do some planning ahead to be sure that the place where you are going will have options, or, if the event will be on someone's house, check with the host if they will offer (or if you can bring) something suitable for you.

If you are not trying to force other people to live your lifestyle, guilt-trip them or show yourself as moral superior to others, them you already are a "good vegan".

And, if you want to invite people to be like you, do it by offering/showing tasty animal-free food to your guests as an option.

You just do you. I think when people say "bad" they generally mean preachy. That is not most vegans. Just live your life, eat what you want, bring good food to potlucks so that you know you'll have something.

I will add that mentioning it is not preachy, if you get an overreaction it's not you. I am omnivorous and would want someone to tell me before a party or outing so that I don't accidentally invite them to a steakhouse or BBQ joint. I often make vegan food for potlucks just because it's sort of a baseline, most everyone can eat it.

I was vegan for about 8 years. I just don't bring it up often. I don't tell people I am a vegetarian. It's not a bragging point. It's just one part of who I am. Don't make it your whole identity.

"What makes a "good vegan", and how can I be one?"

huh... not eating/consuming animal-related products?

Hey, glad you want to be a considerate, conscientious vegan! You won't upset anyone as long as you follow these simple rules:

1. Never admit that you are vegan
2. Never talk about veganism
3. When people are talking about meat, eagerly participate
4. Do not eat visibly vegan food in public
5. If offered meat or cheese, eat it without protest
6. Do not cook vegan food if serving others
7. When you see a cow, remark out loud how you want to eat it

That's about all you need to know to be one of the Good Vegans. Hope this helps!

I don't think there are good arguments for eating meat, and I think people get mad at vegans because of the cognitive dissonance. "If eating meat is bad, and I eat meat, then I'm bad. But I'm not bad! They must be bad! They suck!"

Sometimes you see this with other things. Like if someone walks or takes a bike instead of driving for the environment. "If driving is bad for the environment, and I do a lot of driving, I'm doing bad. But I'm a good person! Fuck them for making me feel bad!"

Most people are just large children.

Sometimes people try to justify eating meat. Some reasons are more defensible than others. Someone with severe allergies might have trouble getting nutrition from vegan options. Someone saying "but I enjoy it" is acting like a child.

In short, most people are operating mostly on emotional levels. Facts don't really matter. Feelings drive them. I think this is the root of most of our problems, honestly, that people can't put aside their emotions.

Personally, I try to minimize how much meat I eat, but I'm okay with accepting sometimes I do bad things.

Respond to right wing reactionaries who go out of their way to complain about vegans simply with "😇💌Triggered"

There. Now you are the Good Vegan™️

I'm not vegan, but I find it absolutely wild that anyone thinks being kind of annoying sometimes comes anywhere near the level of moral or ethical bankruptcy involved in being complicit in the mass torture of animals for the sake of convenience. Like, okay, yeah, it's not like we have the option of just deciding on behalf of powerful capitalists to just end factory farming. But deciding to at least try not to participate in it by changing your diet is at least something.

Don't worry about being a "good vegan" if that means having to tiptoe around the fact that the rest of us fuel immense suffering both monetarily and through social normalization. You're trying, and that's great.

You can’t really be a good vegan to people who hate vegans: the fact that they’re assholes is 100% on them and 0% on you.

Their hate of vegans comes from their own hangups. I imagine it’s one or more of:

1. Their own uncomfortable feelings around eating animal products, which you are reminding them of.
2. They think that vegans think that they’re “better than them,” and they resent vegans for it.
3. Some weird toxic masculinity-adjacent thing.
4. They just hate anything & everything that isn’t normal/consensus, for whatever reason.

Maybe there are other hangups as well; those are what immediately come to mind.

Don’t live your life to please other people. It’ll make you miserable because there will always be those you can’t please. Instead, define for yourself what a “good vegan” is, and do your best to meet that standard. Everybody is different, and only you know what works for you.

Also, be forgiving of yourself. Everybody makes mistakes; no one is born an expert at anything. The fact that we still bite our tongues while eating is proof of that. So give yourself grace when you make a mistake; learn from it, and become better.

As someone who deals with lactose intolerance.

Just don't make it a big deal, if you can't eat something, don't eat it. Your needs are important, but other people are equally entitled to their own enjoyment.

I hate vegans who only do it to virtue signal, it is a personal journey keep it that way.

If someone is thoughtful enough to ask about your dietary requirements, they are probably "good people" and won't care about it. They will just make allowances for you.

An anecdote about dietary requirements:
I have a sister in law who cannot eat onions/garlic/leeks etc... she does make a big deal about it, no dishes can have those ingredients when she is around.
Her intolerance is about at bad as mine, she gets bloated and gassy... So not dangerous, just uncomfortable.
It always feels difficult to deal with. My view is, if you want to make potatoes with cream sauce, enjoy it I'll eat something else.

Yeah I think "evangelical vegans" or "bad vegans" are a sort of caricature made for comedians and then everyone else to punch down on. Sure annoying vegans exist, and so do annoying meat eating people, but diet isn't necessarily why these people are annoying.

I imagine there's also an element of defensiveness from meat eaters as well. Even reasonably stating "I don't eat meat because of the cruelty in the industry and the negative environmental impacts" is implicitly challenging a meat eater to consider those things, which they likely never have. And being faced with the certainty that the vegan is making that statement (the cruelty of the industry and environmental impacts are objective), the meat eater is possibly going to feel like they are being judged or attacked.

Idk but be prepared for people to be extreme assholes to you because they don't like your choice of food. Mfers will see you not order a meat dish at a restaurant and take offense and try to bait you into an argument. Don't fall for it because they'll play dirty

Don't be preachy, respect other people's opinions. It's simple.

Don't superglue yourself to burger king counters while holding a tablet playing a meat grinder video.

Don't follow random people and film them to ridicule them online for buying McDonald's.

Don't steal homeless people's dogs and put them up for adoption.

Don't block traffic.

Don't shame anyone for eating meat and animal products.

Don't block entrances to restaurants that serve animal products. Don't bang on the windows or shine bright lights into the restaurant either.

Don't act like words like bacon, beef, venison, sausage, pork, etc. are slurs or swear words.

Don't hide the fact that a dish has vegan alternatives, that's not going to make someone realize it's Not As Hard Of A Change!!!!! Those alternatives usually have allergens most wouldn't expect if it were name the regular way. Who expects soy or nuts in a hot chocolate or chicken nugget?

Just exist and don't be a dick. Anyone who has a problem with a vegan just existing is an asshole, don't waste time with them. But if the association with Those Vegans™ still sucks, then just say it's your religious belief. But then again if you have the emotional energy, you should denounce and call out the toxic vegans and help destroy the negative impression.

Most vegan hate is just reactionary and you should disregard it. It's because vegans force omnivores to confront the reality of where their food comes from, to confront climate science, and to confront your own personal social responsibility. I think it's very silly to be concerned with being a "good vegan". If you don't want to get into arguments then just eat your vegan food and move on. If people take issue with you deciding to eat the food you want to eat, and having boundaries around not wanting to eat certain foods, especially given that these decisions are based on your own moral compass, then they are complete dickheads you should not be around anyway.

I also don't think there's anything morally wrong with being a naggy/pushy vegan. I don't try to convince anyone to go vegan just because I figure if they want to then they will, if there's resistance then I have better ways to spend my time. If they're vegan-curious they're always welcome to ask me about it. I think whether or not you try to make other people go vegan is a personal choice, and a political choice about how to most effectively enact your politics.

I think trying to have a more progressive social circle will help you, because I have honest to god never experienced one of my friends taking issue with me being vegan, and several of my omnivorous friends have confessed to me unprompted that they feel bad about eating animal products and "should" eat more vegan food (I don't ever even talk about veganism except for just mentioning that I'm vegan when we're getting food together). Like I said, if they take issue with the food you choose to eat/food you refuse to eat for moral reasons, they are just plain dickheads and you should stop being friends with them.

If you're not dictating what others should eat, then I think there would be no issue. Goodness is in behaviour, right?

I'm in India. In Hinduism, some upper castes have vegetarianism. And also most people would need to have meat or fish to achieve a balanced diet and meet nutritional goals within reasonable costs.
We also have the issue of people suspected of eating cow meat being mob lynched to death in some North Indian states.

So, when I see moralistic stuff being talked about diets, I become wary about associated casteist/classist things behind it.

I've read that the average Western person eats a lot of meat compared to others, so not against the idea of better consumption to reduce wastage, but have seen some online discussions where people are talking about it from two contexts.

Honestly, just don't be a dick about it.

It's like being a good insert religious group. You live your beliefs, and don't push them on other people. It's really that simple. That's what people hate about vegans.

If someone asks, it's perfectly okay to explain why you follow a religion, so it's fine when the question is about being vegan. It's when there's a conversation about something else, and you insist on shoving your beliefs into it that's there's a problem. Or, when the conversation is such that talking about your beliefs is the goal, insisting that the other people agree with your beliefs.

It's that simple. It's that easy.

I troll vegans. It's easy to do because a lot of them treat it like a religion and are zealots, or are arrogant enough to think that they're better because of what they believe. But, irl away from the anonymity of the internet, it rarely happens, and the vegans I know are fucking great, because they don't shoehorn their beliefs into things, and don't act like jerks about it. It's why I'll gladly cook vegan for them when they're guests.

You know how people bitch about jehovah's witnesses and mormons knocking on their door, or the baptists (or other christian sects) leaving shit on their stoop or shoved into doors? Don't be like that. If you're in a situation where you would not be surprised that someone would be angry/annoyed by someone going on about being wiccan or christian, or hindu, they'll likely be the same about veganism.

Live your beliefs, don't show them off, and anyone that has a problem with you is the asshole, not you.

Honestly I don't care what you want to eat. It's your body, you can shove whatever you like into it.

Where vegans become a problem is where they're being evangelical about their beliefs and trying to force their audience to feel the same shock and horror as they feel when contemplating the meat industry. If all I hear from you is restricted to when I offer you food and ask if you have any dietary requirements, and is of the form "I'm vegan", that's absolutely fine. If we're friends I'll adjust the menu for you, although you might have to accept it's only your plate that gets veganified.

You going "eww" and talking about "rotting corpses" or whatever is where it becomes a problem. If I've asked, obviously I've brought your response upon myself but you should still tone it down for the non-vegans. "I've looked into the meat industry and I didn't like what I saw" would be a good first response; make sure not to release any gory details unless people are really pressing you for that level of detail.

That said, none of this is based on actual experience of offensively evangelical vegans. I've heard they exist but haven't met one yet. I've known some people for quite a while before finding out they're vegan, veggie or whatever.

Not by asking non vegans. Vegans are the voice for the voiceless and you're taking part in a boycott that challenge peoples core beliefs. To be a good vegan is to push back and disturb social cohesion which people do not like. I'm not a vegan to make friends, I'm vegan to do the right thing.

If people ask why you're vegan, focus on the positives of veganism. I say: the food's delicious, I feel healthier, and I like animals.

It frames it as something you benefit from, rather than depriving yourself of something.

If you have any standards for behaviour in yourself then others will attack you for them. It is called do-gooder derrogation.

Eating and using animals is a cruel and selfish thing that almost all of us were raised to believe is necessary and nice. On some level everyone is aware that you can't root for babe and also condem pigs to the gas chamber to die in screaming agony. That is painful, and many people respond to their own pain by lashing out at others.

No matter what you do there will be people who see it as an attack on their values and identity. Just be vegan in whatever way is comfortable to you.

My buddy went hard when he first went vegan, pushing me to see videos of animal abuse so i would 'understand'. That was annoying, but it was new to him so i didn't make it an issue. His making the change was enough to start me on the road myself, though i don't think he'd understood that (cuz i'd never tell him lol)