Yesterday was exactly 3 weeks since I went from eating what I thought was healthy with a little junk food sprinkled in sparingly to radically changing my diet to a vegan diet.

In the past three weeks I have heard it all. CONSTANTLY. I am already sick of hearing, "We went to Claim Jumper to eat today, SORRY...we had meat!!" Um, ok, just because I don't want to shovel dead animals down my throat anymore doesn't mean I am expecting anyone else to be that way.

Don't get my wrong, I understand that it is hard for people who have known me for years, even my sister who has known me her whole life, to accept such a drastic, immediate change in someone that they love. I get that. But the constant comments, arguments, and the "How do you get protein" comments are driving me crazy! LOL

Luckily I am strong enough to take their comments with a grain of salt. Not that long ago, I was the same way. I never argued with a vegetarian but I didn't really understand them and just shrugged and said, "Hey, I like meat." But I realize now that I was just scared and uneducated.

I am struggling with my family though. My husband supports my new diet, and even looked up vegetarian restaurants to eat at on our vacation this weekend, but he has not committed to the change. He did it for the first 10 days with me (I did a cleanse to prepare my body for the good stuff) but he eats meat pretty much every day for lunch. It doesn't bother me, at least he eats what i cook for dinner and I know he is getting one good meal each day!I am just going to lead by example and if he switches over, then great....if not, that is his choice.

But my kids are a different story. I don't want to force them to be vegan, and I don't want to say they can never eat birthday cake when they go to their friend's birthday parties. BUT I also want them to be as healthy as possible. Again, I am trying to lead by example. I had a talk with my daughter about what is good for your body and what is bad for your body, and I explained that we are never going to eat at the fast food places again. She understood and has seemed to accept it pretty well. It took her about a week but she seems to finally be adapting to the new foods. She even had steamed broccoli and raw carrots for lunch one day last week and ate it ALL! I was so happy! I made her some vegan cookies to reward her because I was so proud of her. But my husband argues that he does not want to force decisions on them. I agree, but I just hope that if she eats good at home, and sees us eating good at home, then she will follow that lead when she is away from home. I can't expect her to go to a friend's house and refuse to eat if they serve pizza. But I can make sure that she drinks a ton of water and eats some raw veggies when she gets home to try to flush it out as fast as possible.

Anyway this is getting long. I will post an actual intro on another thread. LOL Sorry!

Lead by example, people tend to come around when they see the results of healthy living

Hey eekameek!

I am new to vegetarianism (4 months). People do seem feel the need to make comments about my food choices (despite the fact that I would never presume to do so to them). As with other things in my life, I have finally learned to simply stand in my truth. I no longer defend, explain, apologize, etc. My choice is my choice and I usually respond to comments with a tight smile and change the subject. They tend to get the message and unless they are really obnoxious, they don't do it a second time. If they do, I just don't care. I figure it is not my business what anyone else thinks of me.

As for your children, I think you will probably be more influential by example rather than insistance. Your children will learn how to make good food choices by your example. Their choices will not always be what you would choose for them, but in the long run it will work out.

I hear ya. When I first went veggie my mom and sister would drag me to restaurants that were the "grill" variety so, in an effort to be polite and not makea big deal over the fact that there was really nothing on the menu for me to eat, I would simply order some fries and eat when I got home. Then they started calling me a "junkatarian" because all I ate was fries. :rolleyes: That lasted for a while and then I asked them to explain to me how their double-greasy-fried-burgers-with-extra-grease would be considered "healthy". They pretty much shut up after that. lol
With my kids, I feed them veggie at home and I don't stress about outside home. My husband, like yours, still eats meat and my in laws love to bring the boys to McD's. :sigh: So I just teach them what good food and junk food is and let them know that, while grandma and grandpa take them to McD's, mommy doesn't. When we went away for the weekend earlier this month they pretty much ate pizza and chicken nuggets the whole weekend (let me tell you how horribly unveggie Plymouth, MA is) and they had some major digestive tract issues upon returning. I think, as much as I would've hoped it hadn't happened that way, they got quite a lesson in what junky food does to your body. Same thing happened to my hubby (who ate meat the whole weekend, greasy, fried stuff). Just this past week they told me they wanted to eat my veggie "fake" chicken nuggets instead of the McD's ones. :nana: I have an agreement with my husband that I won't veganize the kids but he doesn't have any emotional interest vested in wanting them to be omni.
Hang in there. People chill out and it gets much easier. :hug:
Mary

Thanks! Your stories give me hope! :)

i cannot tell you how many "how do you get protein?" and "do you mind if i eat meat" s i have heard :wall: but from friends/family it will go away. from people you dont know well, they will still come, but you learn to live with it :]. as for your family; i know im going to raise my kids vegan, but its a lot harder if they have grown up omni's. i would suggest keeping it mostly or total vegan for you kids (whichever they will tolerate), but allowing things like pizza, cake, on occasion for parties, eating out and the like. or you could cook vegan food and tell them that if they want other kinds of food they have to make it themselves (thats what my mom did). and who knows, your kids may decide to go veg themselves with an influence like you and good education on the matter. (how old are they by the way?)

It's all good. I think everyone goes through a period like that at first, just don't feed into the remarks, and they probably won't bother you too much. After awhile you become so used to your new lifestyle and so does everyone else you will find it hard to remember how different it seemed to you and your peers at first. Good Luck!

After 10+ yrs of vegetarianism, I still get people asking me how I get protein. It was really cute recently, my omni bf of a little over a year was talking to some people at work or something, and one of them asked how vegetarians get protein (not sure how it came up) and he like, defended vegetarianism. I'm corrupting him well. Just the same, I never expect him to turn veg. He eats whatever I cook for dinner providing it doesn't include certain veggies, or they're big enough he can pick them out. Short point to the long story... people will always ask you stupid questions, you just sort of get used to it and brush it off easier.

In terms of your daughter, it is my position that all parents regardless of their beliefs push them onto their children. It is the nature of parenting. Just because meat eating is the "norm" in our culture, doesn't mean that eating it is not a decision, and feeding it to our children is not making that decision for them. It is impossible to raise children in a completely neutral fashion. Part of having children is teaching them our values and beliefs. They may not take, but parents put them out there for better or worse.

I've discussed with my boyfriend that when I have children, I would like to raise them vegetarian, but I WON'T feed them meat. At first, following the hypothetical that these would also be his children, he was VERY against it. I finally got him to agree with my view point by pointing out that if we had kids, I would be staying home with them, and feeding them breakfast, packing their lunch, giving them after school snack, making dinner -- thus entirely responsible for their nutrition (he doesn't cook). I do not cook meat, or buy meat, or handle meat, thus, they will not be getting it from me. That being said, I don't plan on raising my children in a bubble. They're going to go out with their friends, and if they decide they are going to eat a burger or whatever, that's their choice, but it won't be coming from me. I'm just hoping by the time they're in that position, I've instilled enough of my values into them so that they make a different choice! Naturally this is different if you're feeding your children in this fashion from birth as opposed to making a change when habits are already established.