Hey Guys,
My Name is Ciera.
A veggie for 11 of my 20 years on earth!
I live in Huntsville AL
and really am the only vegetarian i know other than my mother.
It's rare down here in Meat and Potatoes country.
I am really trying to get in gear with my vegan diet.
I am vegetarian because I dislike meat, and the health aspects.
But the fact I dislike it made it the easiest decision i have ever made.
Vegan however is a little harder for me.
I adore Cheese.
So I am starting slow, and building up to it.
That and the lack of vegan friendly restaraunts down here in the south is really depressing.
I am currently a full time student, majoring in Business,
I want to open my own off the grid organic "walmart" with everything from organic cotton clothes, to food, to sustainable material furniture.
Currently I make my money as an Arbonne Consultant,
As vegetarians I hope that you know what this is, but if not you are in for a treat.
It is a line of skin care, cosmetic, and dietary supplements that are
*certified vegan
*never tested on animals
*hypoallergenic
*free of mineral oils, dyes, and chemical fragrances
*botanically based
*pH correct (different from pH balanced)
*dermatologist TESTED (different from dermatologist approved)

It's wonderful!
So if you don't have an arbonne consultant ALABAMIANS just let me know.
I hope that I can find wonderful vegetarians to share finds, and restraunts, and maybe even a dinner friend. :)

Welcome! I've been living in Alabama for about 2 and a half years now and i've been vegan for almost that whole time. It is a shame about the lack of vegan choices around here. Huntsville is a fairly large city, though. correct? so i'm sure you won't have too hard of a time once you sort things out. I live in a small town (population 1,500) south of Birmingham. Nothing vegan or even vegetarian friendly around here. You can get by fairly easily anywhere, though. cutting out "convience" crap is healthier too. Not that no vegan convience stuff is avalible or that you can't find "accidentally vegan" stuff in markets, because you can. Pretty much every store stocks soy/rice milk and tofu + a few "meats" (if you eat those). vegan soy cheese is hard too come by here. I say give up cheese and "cheese" for a couple months all together until you get over the addiction (yes, milk is addictive) and then try some "substitutes". Many people recoment Cheezly and Sheese so if you don't mind ordering online, I say try them. There's also a weblink for ordering a handmade (kind of pricey) gourmet vegan nut cheese, but I don't remember it. Maybe check out the "uncheese cookbook" or whatever it's called for recipes. I also have become fond of the rice slices (some aren't vegan). they have chedder, American and pepperjack. and for melting, People also recomend Teese, Which you can order online or Follow Your Heart (vegan gourmet). You can also use nutritional yeast to make a "cheese" sauce, which is good. but you don't need cheese to live, so if you don't like any of the subs, Just think about the dairy industry and cut out cheese and "cheese" all together. *good* fatty things like hummus and avocado take it's place nicely.

Huntsville's actually a bit smaller than Birmingham - which by Alabama standards makes it a "large" city. But with not even 200,000 residents ... it's still got a way to go before it really qualifies as a "fairly large" city. LOL

I don't live in Huntsville - I'm about 30 miles away from H'ville. My biggest problem here is not grocery shopping (though I wouldn't mind some better stores with more ethnic varieties other than Mexican). I also would like to have one really good health food store - that is open on Saturday. Garden Cove isn't a horrible HFS and they do have some of the harder to find stuff (including some vegan "cheeses") - but they're run by Seventh Day Adventists so the store closes early on Friday and isn't open at all on Saturday. Makes it a bit inconvenient.

My problem is the attitudes. I don't know anyone who is vegetarian or even remotely friendly to vegetarianism. Tell someone here that you don't eat meat and you may well have said, "I'm an alien and I'm here to probe your anus."

Wait - you'd probably get a better response from Bubba and his girlfriend Billie Jo if you said that.

There's a lot of hostility in these Southerners when you tell them you don't eat meat and you don't believe in hunting or decorating your house with the stuffed corpses of the things you killed.

I've had trouble eating out and requesting meals without meat because the servers are either completely stupid about vegetarianism, very hostile toward it or both.