It is almost Thanksgiving week here in America and for many of us the festive season brings with it many challenges. It can challenge our relationship with our families, as well as challenge our own mental health and inner well-being. So what is it about family celebrations that cause problems and tensions for vegans? And how do we go about making these experiences more positive?
Whatever your religion, country of origin, or background you undoubtedly are expected to participate in regular family gatherings of one sort or another. These days can be challenging whether a person is vegan or not. Adults gathering together under their parents’ roof have to deal with all of the subconscious awakenings of previous family roles, assumptions, and expectations. And all of this can lead us to go down a negative route without anyone in the room really knowing why – except that well, James has always been difficult or, you know, that’s just Amy, she’s always been a drama queen. Except that maybe an outside would be able to see that James isn’t just being difficult or that Amy is justified in her feelings. After all, we aren’t children any more.
Putting the difficulties of family dynamics to one side, vegans returning to such family gatherings can find that previously happy family events such as summer BBQs or winter feast days are not the same as they used to be. This is simply because they are now aware of the pain and suffering that is caused by the food that is being shared in order to ‘celebrate’ as a family.
A vegan no longer sees a burger on the barbie, or a slice of ham on a plate. Instead they see images of the animal’s suffering, the cruel conditions on the modern day ‘farm’ and the absolutely horrific way in which these animals are slaughtered. Which often includes gas chambers for pigs and often consciously being hacked to pieces for cows. Vegans have also heard the fear in the voices of these animals as they die, the sound of a pig dying in a gas chamber would bring most people to their knees. Not to mention the look of terror in their eyes as they are beaten and forced to walk to their death. Most people have not seen, heard, or even properly thought about any of these things. Making them oblivious and hard hearted as to why someone who is vegan might be upset around people celebrating by eating animals.
I know that I find it hard to be around this type of celebration. And for me it does not get easier with time. The more I know about the suffering of animals the harder it gets. And believe me, after researching this for years, I feel like I get to the point where I think I have seen or heard everything that we do to exploit and cause animal suffering, and then something new comes along and takes my breath away. We humans are excellent at torturing other animals for our own gain.
The difficulty is that we desperately want to let people know about the life the pig or turkey that they are eating had. Because most people don’t know. The adverts on TV and the images on packaging and online all suggest happy animals on happy farms, who merrily walk to the slaughterhouse. Or if people do know something about it they believe that we can improve the conditions of these animals and still continue to eat them.
But both of these positions are false. Because we cannot raise and eat the number of animals that we do (6 billion land animals per year) on beautiful pasture and in outdoor spaces so that they can skip about to their heart’s content. There just isn’t enough land on earth to do that, not to mention the sewage and pollution that animal agriculture causes. And when you look beyond the clever packaging and marketing hype much ‘outdoor raised’, ‘humane’, ‘organic’, ‘red tractor’, ‘farm assured’, labelling is unfortunately all whitewash and confusion designed to make people feel more comfortable paying for animals to be killed on their behalf. And that leads us onto another problem, you still have the business of killing of these 6 billion animals. Which any slaughterhouse worker will tell you cannot be done without suffering. These are sentient animals. Intelligent creatures. Innocent beings. They get frightened just like a dog would be, or a young child. And everything about their biology and brain make up tells us that they feel pain, just like we do.
So if you take all of the information and present it in a happy room, surrounded by people laughing and having a merry time while unwittingly causing animals to suffer, it can feel incredibly galling and difficult to square in our minds. So the temptation is just not to go. But is this always the right way to approach things?
Well, yes and no. I think we have to recognize that it can be damaging to our mental health to go along to events and feel that we cannot be ourselves. So there may be times when it is better not to go along to something. For example, I would never go to a meat based BBQ. My work has an annual trip to a BBQ restaurant. The first year I just made my excuses. The second year, being a bit more secure in my position, I straight up told them that for me that is akin to me asking them to go to a dog-meat restaurant. They are now much more open to having my input into where we go to eat out as a team. So, if you don’t have to go to an event that will cause you distress, then it may be better not to go.
But be careful here. Do not pass up on celebrations and occasions with people that mean a lot to you because of food. It is time to think creatively instead.
The perfect solution, and my favorite, is to host the event yourself. Whether it is Christmas or a birthday party, being the host means that you get to wow everyone with an amazing all vegan spread. Don’t be skimpy and don’t be too healthy. This is the time for the vegan chocolate cake and ice-cream. This is the time to show people that you can still have a celebratory meal without the cruelty and with all the taste and flavor.
If you can’t or don’t want to host, the second best solution is to bring your own delicious main course and dessert – giving your host a heads up that you are going to do this. They will probably be thankful not to have the headache of having to make something extra for you. Bring extra to share and you are sure to get lots of positive feedback.
If the celebration is a venue, be sure to contact them in advance to be sure that they know that they need to prepare vegan food for you.
Next, you need to get yourself in the right headspace. When you go to these family celebrations see yourself as being an advocate for the animals. Now, think about that. Is the best way to advocate to shout at people and bash them over the head with how rubbish you think they are? No! You got it. The best way is for you to be happy, healthy and kind. To be respectful and give people useful information when they ask for it. To not get defensive and if you feel that you are being ganged up on, to call them out without being aggressive and asking for the topic to be changed to something more positive. Remember that the more you normalize veganism the more likely the people in your life are to become vegan.
But they need to learn for themselves. Give them documentary information if they ask you questions, tell them about vegan online academy if they say they would go vegan but wouldn’t have the willpower, pass on a recipe book if they ask you how to make the dish you brought. But don’t lecture – it’ll get you nowhere. Above all remember that you were just like them a few years ago, until something clicked inside you.
My final piece of advice on this topic is that your family may well be amongst the hardest people in your life to see change. They can subconsciously see your veganism as a rejection of their family values. Or an attack on how you were raised. Always focus your energy on people who seem interested in a vegan lifestyle and don’t be too downhearted if your nearest and dearest don’t want to listen to you. Give it time, you might be surprised that they come around. Some never will, while the person you least suspect may have a sudden epiphany.
Meanwhile, you can feel that you aren’t doing enough for the animals if you don’t convince everyone around you to go vegan. A simple solution to this feeling is to just get going doing whatever else you can to promote veganism. There are literally thousands of ways to help. It is why I am doing what I do with Vegan Online Academy.
Gifts are important in our culture. People give us gifts to show us that they love us and that they care, so they can be a really big deal. As far as gifts go, it is definitely worth giving people a heads up about what you can’t accept. I let everyone know that I can’t accept anything made of wool, leather, down, cosmetics tested on animals, or any food item containing animal products. You can do this in person, or via a well-crafted email, or you can ask those close to you to pass the message along.
As a teacher, I let all my students know about this at the beginning of the school year, along with ideas about things I do love like plants, books, and Body Shop soaps etc. They all love giving me dark chocolate or other things and are always proud to say, “I found this for you Ms., and it’s vegan!”
If I do get a gift that I can’t accept, for instance a friend gave me those supposedly eco-wool dryer balls last year, I just let the person know that they are so kind for thinking of me but I can’t accept because of X,Y, or Z. I am specific to whatever the item is. For the wool item, I spoke to them and then asked if I could send them a video about it. They said, yes. And they were shocked over what they saw and had no idea that sheep suffered so much for wool – a common misconception. People often have no idea about the pain behind those prettily boxed and marketed cosmetics, chocolates, or luxury items, especially the suffering to animals such as ducks for the clothing or bedding industry, or cows for the leather industry.
You may be thinking that this is all too far. Why not just accept the gift and give it away? My rationale is this. If you don’t speak up, chances are you will get the same thing for the next gift they buy you. And for me I cannot be responsible for the suffering of animals, if someone is buying something for me then it is my fault that the money has been spent on animal cruelty. I see it as a valid opportunity to highlight some things that are not yet in the common consciousness. It is all about the way you approach things.
In my perfect world, special occasions are actually a wonderful opportunity to promote veganism. I take every opportunity I can at this time of year to do this from buying everyone a small vegan gift at work, to providing food for the Thanksgiving Feast, to ordering an amazing vegan dish at my work’s festive meal out, to hosting a 100% vegan Christmas meal on the day itself. And if I weren’t hosting I would be turning up with the most amazing box of vegan treats and food to share containing everything from vegan beer and wine, to dips and chips, to a main meal to share and a dessert too. I might also just have a vegan book or two in my bag – just in case!
And if at the end of the day, the time spent with you family is actually a disaster. And you find that people are cruel and unkind to you because of your lifestyle choices. If you find they mock you and make jokes at your expense in order to rial you, then perhaps you do chose to find a different way to celebrate next time around.
But I think that this situation is becoming less and less frequent. If we meet people with happiness, joy, and an open mind, most of the time we will have those feelings returned to us.
For more support and to learn more about how to easily transition to a plant-based diet, sign up for Vegan Online Academy’s Vegan 101 course today. For only $25 you will have access to everything you need in order to make this transition to a new, healthy lifestyle easily and with complete success.
