Being vegan is hard!

Or so people tell me. Many of them probably haven't actually given it a shot. They just say some variation of the above. I also hear nonsense like "being vegan means sacrificing" or "I could never do that" fairly often and it's only been a couple months. Perhaps I'm being unfair when I call the latter "nonsense"--I'm sure they know what they can and can't do better than me. Nonetheless, I am very suspicious of the truth of that statement when I hear it, so when someone says it all I hear is them reinforcing their resolve to continue eating animal products by repeating justifications of their supporting frivolous abuse and slaughter. Or perhaps they're just reminding me of their boundaries out of concern that I'll cross them by saying more about the unsavory aspects of their food sources than they're comfortable hearing.

Writing this in a blog post feels like kind of a passive-aggressive move to me. I probably won't post it on Tumblr to lower the chances of anyone who has said this to me reading this. If that didn't work, hello and nothing personal, this is just how I feel and I try not to hurt your feelings too much by actually talking about this sort of thing around you (or maybe by the time you read this I'll have made an ass of myself in front of you and if I did, sorry.) That's a collective/ambiguous "you", by the way, not you personally. Anyway.

I suppose it could be worse--I haven't run into any outright hostility yet. Most people are supportive as long as I don't show any signs of expecting them to do it, too. I'm not naive enough to expect them all to go vegan just because I am, but I do think they should, and I'm not going to say otherwise (although it is their own choice that they have to make themselves--that doesn't mean I don't have an opinion about what choice they should make. An irrelevant opinion, but it exists nonetheless and it won't change.) I wouldn't care as much if so many people being omnivores didn't limit my food choices in some circumstances because omnivores are the ones being catered to. I'm vegan mainly because I think keeping and slaughtering livestock (especially on an industrial scale) is wrong, but I go out of my way to wash my hands of it for the sake of my own peace of mind--it might make a difference, but one person changing their habits won't make the factory farms disappear.

Anyway. Veganism itself is not hard, at least not in my experience and at least not the dietary aspect of it, which seems to be what most people insist is so hard (you can look through my previous posts if you'd like to see examples of the mental circles I've been running around in because of the wool and leather I bought pre-vegan.) It isn't that there isn't tons of delicious vegan-friendly food out there--it's just that it's neglected in favor of omnivorous recipes. Since omnivores can eat vegan food without violating their principles and the reverse is not true, I find this extremely irritating and profoundly unfair. Not that most people have any reason to care about that--it's just an explanation for how I react to omnivorous eating habits. If it seems like I resent them, it's because I do, even if the people who possess them are lovely. Not saying any of them should go vegan to make me happy--I know that will probably just make them resent me if their hearts aren't in it, and I don't want that. Just venting, I guess.