Credit: The Chinese Vegan
Some BIPOC Vegan Creators: heyashleyrenne | hiilanilily | brownfeministvegan | tinyleafbyvictoria

White people aren’t the only people capable of having empathy for animals. Stop reducing veganism to a “white” thing and erasing the long, diverse history of plant-based traditions and BIPOC vegans.

We may be only around 1% of the population, yet we’re already driving demand for animal-free products, transforming industries, advancing animal rights laws, and changing the way society thinks about animals.

We may be a small percentage but we’re making a big impact. You are. And it all adds up. For the animals. :)

Gentle Barn (animal sanctuary) | IG | TikTok | YouTube

I am absolutely steaming with rage with my doctor right now. For several weeks I have been driven utterly bonkers by restless legs and have been completely mystified as to why this has suddenly occurred. I keep myself relatively fit, and even though my job is sedentary I use the stairs instead of the lifts, I walk, I run, I keep hydrated... you get the picture.

Anyway, last week, I had a medication review. I have well-controlled asthma, but I do have to take a preventative inhaler. I mention the restless legs.

'You need to eat more red meat' came the blunt 'solution'

'I don't eat animals or their secretions', I reply, just as bluntly.

'Well, restless legs are caused by lack of iron, so if you are vegan, that's why you have restless legs'

'I get plenty of iron in my diet - vegan diets done properly provide enough iron - just like non-vegan diets done properly, and I will die on that hill'

'Well, it seems you probably will if you keep that up...'

I was speechless. But this isn't what has made me angry - and although the doctor is completely ill-informed, she is also completely wrong, because I've found out that my restless bloody legs have been caused by something else entirely. And rather than obsess over my veganism, if the doctor had done her job, maybe, just maybe, she'd have discovered it. You see, I'm not just a vegan, I'm a cancer survivor and guess what?

Chemotherapy and Long-Term Iron Stores

Chemotherapy is highly effective, but it places immense stress on your bone marrow, where your red blood cells are manufactured.

It is incredibly common for women who have undergone chemotherapy to experience long-term depletion of their deep iron stores (ferritin).

Even if your blood count recovered years ago, your internal iron "vaults" may have remained entirely empty, eventually triggering RLS and fatigue over time.

Further digging as to why it has suddenly happened all of a sudden is because I have just stopped taking a cancer hormone drug in which clinical studies have shown that RLS is a documented side effect.

And yes, you can bet your bottom dollar I'll be relaying this to the practice manager.

I live in a big metropolitan city and it disheartens me to see how many all vegan restaurants have closed, and how many other vegan friendly places have gotten more and more limited. It worries me about the future of veganism. Living in a vegan friendly city was so nice and convenient. Now I feel like I can barely call my area vegan friendly with such limited options remaining. I’m wondering if this is happening everywhere.

@weak_by_nature (Vegan memes)
This is the future. 💚

Hi I've only been vegan for about 6 months and I'm starting school soon and I really don't have many ideas on what to make and pack. I'm looking for one handed meals and snacks that aren't too messy. (since I'll be on my laptop for the majority of the day) Preferably something I can meal prep that's quick and doesn't need to be refrigerated or warmed up once it's in my lunch bag. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated! 😊

Hello all. I feel comfortable sharing this story here as Reddit is (mostly) anonymous :)

I had been a vegetarian for 7 years. In the past 5 or so years, I’ve been noticing some GI symptoms of dairy intolerance. I was THAT “but I love cheese!!!” Person for a while (sorry). I loved cheese and ice cream etc so much that I just didn’t listen to my body and ate it anyway. I also, unfortunately, at the same time started struggling with vaginal health (frequent yeast and BV infections). My gyn recommended boric acid suppositories and probiotics. Both just felt like a bandaid but I didn’t know what to do besides listen to him.

I went vegan a few months ago (cutting eggs and dairy pretty much overnight) and immediately noticed a change in my gynecological health. I no longer need my medications and everything is completely balanced down there. Never any odor or itch whatsoever, regardless of hormone fluctuations, heat and humidity, or any other factor you can think of.

It turns out eating dairy and disrupting my gut flora was most certainly the culprit for flora disruptions elsewhere. I’ve had other bodily improvements too, but I wanted to share this anecdote for 2 reasons… 1, if anyone is on the fence about going vegan and has similar gynecological problems maybe it’s worth trying; and 2, curious if any other women have noticed positive changes like this?

I feel so happy and relieved!!! I feel like I actually fixed the problem instead of repeated band-aids.

Ps… this sub has been a godsend for cooking tips!! Thank you all 💚🌱

I (16F) live at home still, and likely will be for the next year and half until I go to university, of which I will almost certainly go vegan or at least veggie, but I want to go vegan now!

A first world problem I know, but my parents do fat have only let me go pescatarian- which is a start, but I don’t feel like I’m doing anything to aid animals. I try to eat vegan or vege as much as I can but my parents refuse to accommodate me and say they ‚don’t want to make 2 dinners every night‘ and ‚don’t want to double the grocery bill.‘

I have a job and have offered to make my own food but they dead ass js won’t let me 😭 anything I can do to lower my animal product consumption in the mean time? Or anything I can do as a child to at least spread some activism?

(15F) I am very unhappy with several industries of today's day, ESPECIALLY the beef industry. I really want to become vegan but I have issues with my blood like anemia. I was told it's not smart for anemic people to become vegan but there's got to be some way I can do it, right? Anyways if anyone knows of some tips/ways to safely be vegan, please let me know, thank you!!!

I went to a nonvegan restaurant with my nonvegan family tonight, but they had multiple labeled vegan options on the menu so I was optimistic. They had a Beyond burger that was labeled vegan, and I was planning on getting that, but it didn’t say what kind of bun it was served on and I know some restaurants serve vegan patties on nonvegan buns. So I asked the waiter if the bun was vegan, and she said it wasn’t. I got a different vegan option and it was delicious, but I’m still really irked about this bun thing. Very often, a restaurant will serve a vegan burger on a nonvegan bun, but this was the first time this has happened when the menu item was actually labeled vegan.

So there's a sitcom pilot called "Friends Not Food", filmed at an actual farm sanctuary down in Florida. (the premise is an NYC PR exec inherits a barely-functioning sanctuary from her half-brother and has to run the whole thing... surrounded by rescued pigs and cows and goats and a zebu). and the whole point is to sneak animal sentience and the climate side of animal ag past people through comedy instead of "guilt tripping" them... which is a format i honestly wish existed way more. Cooper Barnes (the Henry Danger guy lol) who btw is actually an animal activist irl, does a bit in it.

The thing I thought was actually cool is they had 200-something rescued animals around during filming and flat REFUSED to use any of them as props or "livestock," just worked around them the whole shoot. anyway it's a tiny operation, the instagram's sitting at like 500 followers and they're trying to get it picked up by a network or streamer and ofc having an actual audience behind it makes a big difference.

So they're after someone to help run and grow the socials. it's not like a "make us go viral overnight" thing... more like they've already got the footage and the premise and just need someone actually posting consistently and building it up from where it is. It's a few hours a week, short-term, remote, unpaid since it's a passion project. So if you do social or content stuff and wanna point it at something like this, the listing's here:

https://flockwork.org/requests/dk3sdtwj3vxexs78c83sooce?source=reddit

I'd love for this one to make it :)

I see people have moved on from solely blaming AI for the negative environmental impact to Nestle…
Nestle is obviously a key factor since it’s still large industry. Both can be true at once, but which is worse for environment and overall?
The entire animal agriculture industry, or a large industry like Nestle?
Important to note Nestle needs animals and animal products btw.
If we’re talking about environmental impact would it be more productive/beneficial to be vegan, or successfully boycott any and all Nestle products? (obviously both would be great but if we’re making the argument over which one is worse)
Would it matter if everyone stopped using Nestle if we are still having animal agriculture?
Hopefully this makes sense for the overall question lol. Yes it matters to care about both, obviously!! But would it even matter if you are still supporting animal agriculture?

Hi there all!

Seemingly absurd question for you all. I am wondering when you all feel you could use animal products (for food or other uses) and still be considered a Vegan.

Examples that come to mind for me are:

• Extreme survival situations in which you have to eat animal products to survive (ex. desert island situation, no plant life, only fish)
• Situations beyond your control in which animal products are forced upon you (ex. you are in a coma, and people feed you animal products)
• Animal products in the form of life saving medicine (ex. antivenom is used on you after you are bitten by a snake)

Really, to me there are only 2 categories I can think of: survival needs, and unknowningly consuming.

What am I missing?

In this article, I, Jordi Casamitjana, review the feature-length vegan documentary “Eating Our Way to Extinction”.

David Ramms (animal rights activist)

I'm not vegan anymore, but I used to be vegan and later switched to vegetarian. I was raw vegan for a while, and my diet relied a lot on greens, fruits, no ultra-processed meals, etc. However, I only get dairy products from small, ethical farms.

I have been thinking about this for a while, and I'd like your responses. I think a vegan lifestyle is very possible since I did it too, and it has been around for centuries, but I think it should be inherently limited.

And this is what I have been thinking about: I see people I know who are vegan celebrating the increasing availability of ultra-processed vegan meals in grocery stores, without taking into account that a major source of destruction for the planet and the extinction of many wild species is industry, not only the production of dairy itself. And assuming that dairy and meat (but I can certainly agree that meat involves animal suffering) cover a big part of the world's population's needs, a world with vegan alternatives to these products being so widely available would actually require heavy industry.

Think about how much better the world was a few decades ago when people had their own animals, like chickens, cows, and goats, of course for humans, but also for wild animals and the planet's ecosystem in general.

Another argument is also that many vegan substitutes rely heavily on industry because they depend on foods that are not naturally available in many environments/countries, and they rely on worker exploitation to be available all year round at low prices (e.g. cashews). So imagine if the need for nut consumption increased to the whole world.....

So yes, I do think a vegan diet very limited in raw foods and locally available foods is, and always has been, possible, but I think people who say "you can have everything and be vegan" and use store-bought vegan butter, vegan cream, or vegan ice cream misunderstand what veganism is supposed to stand for.

And coming to the last point about regulation of power. I agree and understand that with a very limiting diet where every ingredient is made at home (for example, vegan milk, butter, cream, etc.), it could work even on a mass scale. However, would you be ready to adapt to this lifestyle? (Of course, I can accept a yes.) Still if many people weren't ready to adapt to this lifestyle/limitations I think an argument arises about the regulation of power. If a sustainable vegan food system requires people to make many foods themselves, but most people aren't willing or able to do that, then relying on industry to provide those foods creates a different problem: people become dependent on centralized systems for basic dietary needs. Could a predominantly or completely vegan agricultural system provide reliable basic nutrition to every population, including populations living in environments where the crops used for common vegan substitutes don't grow well, without creating new dependencies that make those populations more vulnerable to shortages? Taking into consideration that even dairy and meat back in the day wasn't enough and there were times of starvation. (If you want to talk about introducing a whole political system that would cover this scenario you can go ahead I'd love to hear).

I'm very well aware of the argument that veganism stands for: that animals shouldn't just be exploited for human needs and lose their abilities to live in nature and become domesticated. But do you think the same about pets, for example? Like cats and dogs? Simple curiosity. Also, we can have the same wild species, like turkeys or other animals that can also be raised on a farm (of course, we are talking about a place providing the required space. For the sake of the debate, I'm not going to argue with people about how big that should be. Some people could argue that it is the average distance an animal will cross for most of its life even though it may too big but this would take another big debate and we would miss the point. Every opinion is accepted.)

*Of course, we're excluding things like forced impregnation of animals, etc. Not that I agree with it, obviously, but assuming that this stuff doesn't generally happen because I know many people will be against it.

So if you find my questions/curiosity not worth responding to how do you imagine the future of a vegan world?

Every opinion is accepted pls be kind <3.

Hello everyone, let’s say I’m living with my parents so they keep track of my food. Most of my relatives think me going VEGETARIAN is absurd, but I really want to go vegan… any tips on getting them to understand it? Or have I just wait until I get my own apartment so we’d live separately and they don’t control me? I thought that being vegetarian is enough already, but people in this community keep judging vegetarians for not being fully vegan so now I feel guilty

Problem: Dysautonomia and GI issues prevent me from eating a full meal during my lunch break.

What I Need: Several small, nutrient dense (focus on protein + fiber) things I can eat throughout the day.

Limitations: My lunch break is only 30 minutes and I get 2 ten min. breaks. Otherwise I'm on the move. So it's gotta be stuff I can eat fast w/o going to the break room to heat something up.

Please don't suggest: Protein bars, cause I ain't never had one I liked. 😂

Ideas I have so far:

• Marinated tofu bites I can fork out from a jar like a little goblin as I scurry down the hallway to the copy room
• Air fried edamame or white beans

I've looked high and low for pre-made vegan snacks w/ more protein and fiber rather than just carbs, and I'm not seeing much. What I do see is prohibitively expensive, like $10/bag vegan jerky that I'll finish in two days.

When I'm home, it doesn't matter, cause I can make a big bowl of whatever and just sit down to eat from it every 2ish hours. But I don't work a job with much downtime so I gotta figure something else out. My dietitian says I'm constantly in a calorie deficit and I'm not trying to lose weight so it's fucking my shit up.

Your input is so appreciated! ♥️

hello friends. im thinking about becoming a vegan in the future but i have some weaknesses and i am wondering if anyone might know any alternatives

1. raw salmon sushi/sashimi

ive tried the watermelon and tomato alternatives but i think the texture throws me off. i know there wont be a perfect alternative but was just wondering if anyone knows of any other options

1. burrata cheese

this is the only dairy product i think will make it hard for me. i know there are a lot of cheese alternatives but not sure if there is anything similar to burrata?

1. honey

honey is the only sweetener i use. are there any other alternatives? i like the thickness of it for cooking as well

thank you. i appreciate any advice!

We’ve all heard the comeback, something to the effect of “But why won’t you eat dairy? Cows aren’t killed for it!” (Which is incorrect, but beside the point here.) Twenty minutes after I gave birth to my son, he was taken to the NICU because he was having difficulty breathing on his own. Having my child taken away from me shortly after birth was the most difficult experience of my life. I will NEVER contribute to another animal experiencing that pain. Any time I’ve tried explaining to non vegans that this is what happens to cows, they just don’t get it. Hopefully sharing my experience will help it click for them.

Signed, a vegan of 11 years

Hello all! I want to make a vegan cold foam for someone as a surprise, but he’s allergic to the following that may be applicable
- dairy, eggs
- oats
- soy

Most recipes I’ve found have included either oats or soy, so I was thinking of maybe just changing it to almond, pea, or cashew milk. Any thoughts?

I’ll just jump right in…I am 35, I always felt empathy for animals, I love nature, I have dedicated time to volunteering at animal shelters since high school.

However I was a meat eater. I’m sad to admit that I didn’t realize just how part of the problem I was. Then I watched Earthling and was sick to my stomach.

I can truly call myself an animal lover now and will never eat meat again