Vegan Theory Club Weekly Mega thread: 2024-10-19 - 2024-10-26
Vegan Theory Club Weekly Mega thread: 2024-10-19 - 2024-10-26
Welcome to the Vegan Theory Club Weekly Megathread!
Question of the week:
How has becoming vegan improved your life?
Feel free to talk about anything, whether it’s vegan-related or not. This is a chill space for connecting, sharing ideas, and supporting each other.
Looking forward to hearing what everyone’s up to!
How has becoming vegan improved your life?
So many ways, but the one I'll say is i eat much healthier now. I used to never eat my fruits and veggies, and i lived out of the freezer with prepackaged meals. Now i could go live in my garden
Considering I no longer get out of breath when I walk, deal with indigestion, or have rough skin I'd say life has improved significantly since I went vegan.
Though, as I've mentioned previously, I sometimes feel a lot more lonely and isolated from the rest of the world. I live in a pretty big and diverse city so it's genuinely nonsensical to me how few vegans I've actually come across in real life (I've met, like, four other vegans, one of whom "isn't vegan" anymore.)
As for what I'm up to, I'm moving to a different house so I can finally start my garden up again. It's been way too long lol.
Yeah, it is isolating when you realize that you're the vanguard of something. Even though online I'm mean to carnists and get out my aggression in vegan spaces in real life I've learned to be a little more patient, not much, but a little more.
It has helped me to realize though that if I tell someone I'm vegan and they get defensive and start being mean about it that I'm glad because I just saved myself time from having to figure out if the person is worthwhile to be friends with or not. Most people are not mean about it once they get passed the first layer of defense.
Are there vegan groups or events that you could go to meet more? I've found value in volunteering at vegan events locally and meeting other vegans through there.
For me this is an easy one to answer because there are so many ways. Standing up for what I actually believed in and sticking to something that is important to me helped me stay more confident in other aspects of my life. I realize that no one is going to live my life the way I want for me and making this change and standing up for myself and my beliefs has had ripple effects throughout my life including my relationships and job. On top of this my health improved tremendously, granted veganism is not a diet and you can be an unhealthy vegan but I decided I wanted to not only stand up for animal rights but learn how to do it in a way that will be long lasting so I learned about whole food plant based eating. My health did a 180, in my 30s I was obese and in my 40s I look and feel better than I did at any point in my life.
How has becoming vegan improved your life?
Oh god so many ways. I'm healthier, I feel less guilty, I feel a deeper connection and joy to the food I make. It's a confidence booster that while I'm a disaster of a human being in a lot of ways I am at least genuinely able to try and fight injustice and critically examine my own behaviour.
As to what's been going on, I've been digging for treasure! Finding sapphire at a low grade field near me. It's nice to vibe in the forest and get some exercise. Pics related
This is so cool! I'm really inspired seeing something like this, just going out in to the woods and finding something special, a literal jewel. I understand they aren't highly monetarily valued but who cares what other people value, it must have tremendous personal value when you pulled it out with your own hands.
I'm pretty much the coolest person I know (⌐■_■)
Nah but I'm always after more reasons to spend time in the bush and countryside. Something about solitude in scenic places + working up a sweat rejuvenates me. After a week or two without a day in the bush I feel myself getting misanthropic and depressed, but even a casual stroll and I remember that there is actually a staggering amount of beauty in the world.
This is rad as hell, thanks for sharing!
I’m having the most difficult and stressful year of my life and yet my blood pressure is down, my physical fitness is the best it has been in a decade and my junk food consumption is almost non-existent.
No longer feeling any dissonance when interacting with animals and sharing my love for them is a huge relief as well.
Congrats! I is so surprising to me that doing the right thing for the animals often involves doing the right thing for another animal, Us.
How has becoming vegan improved your life?
I can look animals in the eyes without guilt.
With respect to the social isolation veganism can cause, I moved to a way less vegan friendly place about 4 years ago. I don't really have any IRL friends here and it's wild how much more peaceful I feel than I don't need to navigate eating with carnists. I had a family member visit a while back and she got a burger when we were out for lunch (it was a food court, otherwise we took her to vegan places or cooked at home) and I thought to myself "I haven't felt this feeling in a long time!". Once and a while I find myself forgetting carnist options exist lol.
I'm not saying this is healthy or good for everyone and I really feel for people who have people they love and live with who are not vegan. Being someone who is truly happy when alone helps a lot.
This reminds me of how I got rid of facebook a few years back and every now and again when someone mentions it, I'm like "ohhh yeah, that still exists"
one way that being vegan has improved my life is that it's reduced the stress of cognitive dissonance, by which i mean i feel like my dietary choices are in line with my values and beliefs. i'm a practicing Buddhist and not killing is the first precept in Buddhism - and there's millennia of history of at least vegetarian if not entirely vegan cuisine coming from countries and societies where other people took that precept seriously.
for me personally, another moment that impacted me was when my wife and i adopted two cats that had been discovered in an empty house. they were such playful, intelligent, and obviously feeling creatures; what in my life made me feel like cows, pigs, or chickens were any different?
anyway, that's sort of what's improved. it's definitely created more complications too as so many others have pointed out. my wife's not vegan, which bothers me occasionally. my mom totally doesn't understand what being vegan is; she seems to think it's basically keto somehow? i travel a lot for work and in some of the really rural places i visit, finding vegan options can be tough. i don't mind that, but when i travel with co-workers they love to give me shit about being vegan. i keep showing them delicious food options (for example, Frisco, CO, has an amazing Vietnamese restaurant with some of the best vegan food i've ever had), but they still like to mock. oh well. i hope that by living according to my values, i will have an impact on them even if they don't admit it.
Whenever I start hearing mockery I just think of the people as actual apes. Humans are hard wire to maintain consensus and when you challenge that they are unable to process it and fall back on more base behaviors. Mockery is an easy one because it works because most people, as apes who desire acceptance and consensus, will go back to the group.