A couple weeks back we were visiting my mom and as always it’s a big to-do that she has vegan food available for dinner. I appreciate the effort and she does do a great job of making sure there is food that we’ll eat at the house. On this particular night we were doing a baked potato bar. It seemed like a good compromise, who doesn’t love potatoes right? We had all the toppings, a “butter” spread, 2 types of sour cream – vegan and regular, same with shredded cheese (thank you for being there for me Violife), and “Bacon Bits”.

While preparing her potato, my mom says, “I’m sorry that I don’t have any bacon bits for you, I guess they don’t make a special vegan one.” My mom loves her bacon bits… until that day.

“Well mom, those are actually made from soy, so I’m fine with them”

Silence… disbelief… a look at the ingredient list, maybe some sadness?

After dinner she told me to go ahead and take the bacon bits, actually named “bacn bits”, with us – she really didn’t like them after all.

She thought they were great up to that point, so what happened? Marketing happened. You see, every minute of every day while we are awake, we are inundated with marketing, marketing telling us that a meal isn’t complete without meat, and we MUST have it to survive.

Ever heard this one – “How do you get your protein?”

Food marketing is really big, and it makes A LOT of money. Processed meat now recognized as cancer causing? Eh, fake news – I’m too tough for that. Let’s make fun of tofu instead, soy will give you man boobs. Ironically, when I explain that phytoestrogen isn’t the same as mammal estrogen and that drinking real milk spikes your estrogen — pfff, let’s change the subject!

I grew up on a standard American diet, meat was the primary food on the plate, with some sort of vegetable on the side and usually some wonder bread and butter, 2% milk to drink because it was healthier for you. Did you give up meat during Lent on Fridays? The sacrifices we made living on pizza and fish for one day a week!

Anyone who is or has been vegetarian or vegan can relate, and it does cause resentment. Frustration sets in because facts aren’t as important as beliefs. People can hold their diet like an extremist belief, and you really can’t change their beliefs through advocating for the health benefits, or god forbid – how animals are living beings.

Family events are always met with the curiosity of “what are you going to eat” or “I could never give up BBQ”. The biggest rub (did you catch the pun? BBQ? Rub?) that I have is when friends find out that you are plant based (I don’t say vegan anymore), they seem less excited about coming over for dinner. They’ll have you over for dinner, but “something’s missing” to eat only vegan food. However when we’ve done a taco bar and people brought their own meat, it’s our vegan crumbles that run out first – the kids like them more. Oh, and we do bbq too – I’m pretty proud of my BBQ Ribz made from seitan.

Did you know that marketing something as vegan will actually hurt sales compared to saying plant based or nothing at all? Restaurants are now shying away from it because it hurts sales!

The more you advocate for veganism, the more people dig into their own beliefs and the more they will fight you. It’s psychology 101, and people like to argue, especially with strangers… on social media. When you make someone uncomfortable, they get defensive and will find reasons to justify doing what’s wrong, and nothing is quite as uncomfortable as knowing you are wrong. They’ll deny that they and their beliefs are wrong even when faced with facts and science because it’s just too difficult to acknowledge that they are wrong and you are right, the human ego is a magical thing.

So how does the vegan community actually create the change? I’m not a psychiatrist, even if I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express once, but based on my work and life experiences I think the trick is to INSPIRE, not judge. Show how exciting, great, fit, thrilling (add additional really awesome sounding adjectives here) the vegan community really is. People don’t change because they are guilted to change, they change because they WANT to change, make it THEIR idea to go plant based (let’s stick with that for now).

There are exceptions to every rule, but the majority of people don’t care what charities Nike makes donations to, but they do want to be like Mike. Lululemon isn’t about sustainability; it’s profitable because that little logo is a status symbol for being fit and cool. I once read somewhere (I wish I could remember the book) that people don’t donate their time or money because it’s the right thing to do, they do it because it makes them feel good about themselves, that’s the underlying driving cause for the actions we take, we want to feel good about ourselves.

How do we foster a community that people want to be a part of? There are 2 ways.

1. Inspire by being inspiring – everyone has talents that they are great at, tap into your talent and make it a representation of the vegan community. I create software, I’m really good at it and I love what I do, so I create software for vegan and other health and wellness businesses and individuals. I also love endurance sports, so I show how being plant based has helped me swim, bike, and run longer, farther, and faster and be more flexible now than I was in my 20s – inflammation is no joke and being plant based is a game changer. Show how veganism has made you better at your talents and passions and use that to inspire others.
2. Stop the infighting – so many times I see articles or posts from people complaining or arguing that someone or some company isn’t “truly vegan” or “a real vegan” because they have ties to something that isn’t vegan. I see this a lot with restaurants that may use the same grill for animal and vegan food. My opinion – celebrate the fact that they have vegan options, not criticize that it could be done better. This isn’t black or white, there are many shades of grey and I’m just grateful that we are increasing the inroads to vegan in more commercial settings. What about those who say they are vegan, posting about it on social media, but still have a leather purse or you saw eating a chicken sandwich? Dude, let it go. This is where I may differ, but if they are being vegan 6 days a week, then that’s better than 0. If I know them personally, I don’t bring it up. I know they aren’t 100% in, and they know that I know, but I hope they will get there – but they have to do it on their own. The one thing I can do is support that goal through inspiration, not calling them out.

Moving forward we all need to step back and look at the big picture, what is the ultimate goal here – it’s to end, to the best of our ability, the cruelty and suffering of living beings and to live healthier, happier lives. How can we do that? It isn’t going to be by attacking others, we need to be the examples of what better looks like and not knock each other in the process. Who knows, maybe I’m way off, but the way I see it, the current way of doing things isn’t working.

That’s it – thanks for reading,

– Matt