Hi I'm new...

[VegGurl13]

Hello! My name is Sasha and I'm 14. I've been a vegan since birth. My mom teaches a vegan cooking school in our home, and I'm just now beginning to really understand what it means to be a vegan, and what our values are. My mom had always acted as a "mouth piece" for me whenever I was asked questions about being vegan. Now I want to answer those questions myself. I am reading every single book I can about veganism, but maybe some of you could help too! Thanks. I can't wait to get to know you all! :D

[annie7]

Wow! It must be great to have a mom that cooks yummy stuff all the time. It's inspiring to me that you want to "learn all you can" so you can answer questions yourself. You couldn't have picked a better place to start. The people who post here are all so helpful... life experience, researched knowledge... you name it. I hope you'll get the answers you need (and let us ask YOU some questions about that cooking class! I know you've probably picked up alot just by being around it all the time!).

[VegGurl13]

Sounds good to me! Nice to meet you, Annie. :)

[Doug]

Welcome Sasha!!!

[VegGurl13]

Hi Doug! Nice to meet you. Hey, a question for you and Annie...and anyone else on this board, actually: how long have you guys been vegetarian/vegan and why did you decide to become one? Thanks guys! :)

[Doug]

Well,

I've been a vegetarian since I was 17. So it's 13 years. I became vegan about 3 years later. I was doing a report in my Participation in Government class about some social issue and my partner and I chose Animal Rights, mainly because my mom had so much literature about it. As we started learing about the issues, I said to think to myself, how can I can about animals if I EAT them. So I decided to give it up. I just went 'cold turkey' (excuse the pun) one day and that was it! My mom was actually very happy because she never really wanted to serve me meat. Shortly afterwards, my parents became vegetarian/vegan and my wife, who I met in college is also a vegan (after meeting me) and we have a child on the way, due in June.

VegGurl13

I I have a few questions for you. Has it been hard for you to be vegan around your friends who aren't vegan? Do you remember how you felt when you were younger when your friends ate certain foods and you couldn't? It'd be great to hear how it's been for you, as I'm sure I'll have to deal with this with my little one when it gets older.

[VegGurl13]

Hey Doug, congratulations on your baby-to-be! :D

In answer to your questions:

It has always been difficult for me around my friends who weren't vegan. Like I said in the beginning, my mom was my "mouth piece". Basically, whenever someone asked me about my food, I just memorized all the things my mom told me about being vegan. I was VERY shy as a kid, which made it twice as difficult. See, I didn't really know HOW to answer my friends' questions about why I ate food so different from theirs...it was just because I was raised that way, and was too young to decided whether I wanted to remain vegan or not. Now of course, I am old enough, and want to stay a vegan vegetarian. I will tell you, Doug, that I have been in many uncomfortable situations where my friends eat stuff I can't have, such as birthday parties or sleepovers. Gradually, however, I have learned how to teach them about veganism (not in a haughty way, but in a friendly way) so that they can understand. Since the owner of this site has written Raising Vegan Children In A Non-Vegan World, I think that is the book you should read in order to help you raise your son/daughter as a vegan. Also, if you have any questions, you can e-mail my mom at this address: VegGourmet@aol.com I hope this helps, Doug!

[Christa]

Hi - I'll jump in & answer your question about how long we all have been vegan :). My name is Christa. I became an o/l vegi at age 13 & vegan at 16. I didn't want to eat meat for a long time before I became vegi & my parents & I used to have huge fights about it. They used to make me sit at the table for hours until I ate the food. Most of the time I wouldn't & they just yelled at me while I sat there crying & refusing to eat. Obviously this was not the best set up for pleasant meals :)!

They finally gave up when I was 13 & I moved out on my own at 16, so have had control over my diet since then. I am now married to a non-vegetarian whose father was a butcher. Both of our girls (ages 5 & 3) have been vegetarian all of their lives, although they are not strictly vegan. (I wanted to be somewhat compromising with my hubby). They eat mostly vegan at home with an occasional macaroni & soy cheese that has casein in it, or something of that sort. When we are away from home, they have limited amounts of dairy or eggs that other people have cooked into things.

My husband's parents both died when he was a child from colon cancer & heart disease. As a result, we feel pretty strongly that the kids will be better served by eating a better diet than their father grew up eating. My older daughter has had a really hard time living in Colorado where she is such a minority being vegetarian. She is very sad that all of her friends at school eat her animal friends & wants to convert the world. I love her assertiveness & enthusiasm, but wish that it weren't so hard for her.

Welcome to the boards, VegGurl.

[annie7]

My husband had to do a paper and give a speech on a topic given by the professor. "Vegetarianism"... Since he was working and going to school, I helped with the research. The more we learned, we decided to go vegetarian. That was 4 years ago. The past 8 months I've been vegan. He and our daughter are vegetarian, but he leans toward veganism. This board has helped alot. I found it when doing searches for the paper, and it was the thing that pushed me off the vegan/vegetarian fence I was riding.

[VegGurl13]

Thank you all so much for your replies. It's nice to meet you all, and thanks for answering my questions. :cool:

[Casey]

Hi Sasha!
You're really lucky that your mom raised you with vegan values and great cooking! I'm sure there must've been times when you wished you could eat "normal" food like all your friends. When I was in high school, before I became vegetarian, I went to a boarding school where we all got served pretty disgusting meals, but the one vegetarian in the school really suffered at mealtimes. It's only in hindsight that I realize how hard it must've been for her to stay committed to her values when surrounded by so much ignorance and intolerance. So I don't want to sound condescending, but you seem to be a very mature and compassionate teenager - much more so than I was at your age!

I became vegetarian when I was 19. I had a few friends who were also vegetarian, but none of us had any clue about proper nutrition. My friends would go to MacDonald's and order a Big Mac, no meat. After a few years of being vegetarian I started feeling hypocritical about not eating meat, but still eating eggs and dairy - all of the arguments against eating meat also apply to the "lacto-ovo" part of being vegetarian. So I switched to soy milk, then gradually cut out eggs, butter, cheese, etc, until about a year ago I made the conscious decision to become vegan. It was one of the best decisions I've ever made. I wish I'd done it sooner!

It's great that you want to stay vegan and learn as much as you can. I know that it's a big fear for a lot of vegan parents that their children won't continue to be vegan when they get old enough to make their own choices. Your mom must be very happy with the choice you've made - and you've made the animals very happy too! :D
It's nice to meet you, Sasha.

[VegGurl13]

It's awesome to meet you too, Casey! I am so psyched to read all of these posts about you guys and your vegan stories. In about a week or so, my mom is actually going to go teach a Girl Scout troop about Veganism! I'm definitely going with her! Still, I have so much to learn.

[annie7]

Girl Scout assistant troop leader 5 years here....It's all about vegan smore's!! Aramanth grahams, tropical source chocolate, and vegan supreme marshmallows.... let's all join Sasha, I'll bring the sticks!!;)

[Doug]

shucks....those smore's sound good, wish I could go, but I guess boys(men) aren't allowed.

[annie7]

you are if you are the park ranger!

[sarahrose]

veggirl13..welcome! To answer your question, I have been vegetarian for 18 (almost 19) years and vegan for about half that. I originally did it as a little kid because I loved animals. I saw a childrens movie called Project X, about primate experimentation, which was based on actual experiments conducted by the military aerospace devision. After seeing that, I decided I did not want animals to exist just to meet my ends as a human. I was just vegetarian for awhile because I did not understand the dairy industry and it's cruelty and ties to the veal trade. Once I figured that out, I went vegan.

This sight is wonderful, but you should also check out PETA2. It is PETA for the younger generation, and is very cool. You earn points just by posting on the boards, and you can then use the points to order merchandise, at no cost to you-not even shipping!

[VegGurl13]

Thanks for the info, nice to meet you!

[jazz_pianist]

that is sooo cool! I wish I had been raised like that. I'm 15, I live in CA, and my name is bryan. do you have any good recipes? and also, do you know of any weird kinds of fruit I could try?

[sarahrose]

I have loads of recipes. If you specify what you want, I will definatly post them. Some great unusual fruits are kumquats, star fruit, jicama (or is that a root...?) and, my favorite (but not weird) fruit, avacado. What area in C.A. do live? Luckily, where I live (S.F bay area) it is a mecca of vegan and vegetarian food. I love it!

[duckie1978]

Project X a kids movie? While it may have been really popular with younger people because of Matthew Brodderick (just off his Ferris Bueller days), it was not specifically for children. In fact I remember some adult complaints about it because they felt the animal experimentation idea would be too traumatic. (But the Secret of NIHM was okay for some reason, which I will never get. That movie freaked me out more than Project X) I think the fact it was based on real Air Force experiments was another reason adults weren't keen on it being shown to kids.

Weird fruits huh? Well growing up where I was the only fruits anyone ate were the conventional ones: apples, oranges, watermelon, musk melon (cantalope), honeydew, bananas, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, pineapple (canned), and blackberries. My favorite fruit is mango, but I love star fruit. I don't care for papaya but guava isn't bad either. What sort of produce does your regular grocery store carry?

BTW, nice to have you here Bryan!

[sarahrose]

We have been going to the same video store since I was a little kid. Project X was, and still is, in the family section (though last year the owner taped a peice of paper on the cassette that says "This movie may not be suitable for very young children". The secret of Nymh also got to me. I thought it was creepier and darker than Project X.

[duckie1978]

Maybe it depends on the store where it gets placed. It was a good movie, although it did seem very implausible, although incredible exciting, the way to save the monkey. Very few people can really break into a research like that!

[jmksesholtz]

what did you say to someone when they asked why you don't eat meat and if that particular person grilled you knew was defensive about the meat subject? I find that parents or grandparents are the ones that are most defensive. I guess I would like help on this to teach my son how to reply or how to handle some people if any that are judgemental or ignorant???

Thank you,
Kathy

[sarahrose]

For some reason, when I was a kid it wasn't much of an issue. My dad (who raised me) was not at first supportive because I was hardly older than a toddler when I wanted to become an official veg (I had always refused meat, and then heard that people existed called 'vegetarians' who did not eat any meat. The second I heard that, I told him that I was going to be a vegetarian). Anyways, he didn't know what to feed me at first, but eventually once he saw that I was not going to change my mind he went out and learned some veg recipes, consulted about my nutritional needs, and began making me vegan meals.

My biggest challenges with the ignorance and judgmentalism came once I was grown up. Kids in school didn't make an issue of it, and neither did my parents. Once I got married though and had a daughter of my own, I have had to deal with my husbands parents and grandmother, all who are very ignorant about veganism and very judgemental about it. As a solution, I had to just tell them that my husband and I would raise our daughter as we see fit, and that once she is grown up, if she wants to begin living as they do, then that is her choice.

My biggest peice of advice for your son is to stay away from the health arguments and the animal rights philosophy in answering questions from sceptical people, as those things are always open to interpretation. People easily dismiss those arguments and go on the attack, and may possible make your son doubt himself. The best response is to say that you are a vegan or vegetarian because that fits your moral and ethical beliefs. Tell the sceptics that if they are interested in info on it, that you would be glad to get them some literature. I have just found that in my experience, when you try to 'teach' them, they go on the offense emmediatly (like if you were to say "I am a vegan because it is wrong to kill animals for food" that would also be inadvertently accusing them in a sense because they themselves kill animals for food, putting them on the offense and closing them off to being educated. Instead, if you say that you are a vegan because it supports your personal moral beliefs, they may be interested in questioning you on it and learning something). Does that make sense??