my biggest obstacle : mum
i'm no longer a teenager or living at home
have been reading and listening a lot about animals and their plight in becoming our food - and the unethicalness of even eating eggs and animal products like milk and honey. It's in my interest to become a vegan. Have also learned that a vegan diet will still perfectly fulfill my nutrition requirements - much to my relief.
However, to convince mum to also believe this is SO HARD! She doesn't have an open mind and believe I've been brain washed. She thinks she cannot get through to me, and thus also refuse to listen to any 'evidence' i tell her about the health benefits (yes, benefits, not just merely "meeting the nutrional requirements") of a vegan diet. And the main reason of going vegan - to reduce my contribution to animal suffering by my existence.
I wanted to "WEAN" her into the idea of me going vegan, so i decided to take 1 step at a time. though i decide to become vegan (i dont live with her, so she doesnt know what i eat), I simply told her I wanted to change from eating pork and beef, to kangaroo. My reason: pork and beef are farmed in cruel conditions. Kangaroo is free range and often considered a pest in some parts of Australia.
She went BEZERK!
Her argument, is like what most of you vegans have heard all before:
You will become malnourished.
Do what the majority do, don't be the minority (ie by not eating pork/beef)
you're so skinny already. you need your meat
Fine! if thats the way you want it, then i'll just nibble on greens all day too!
(at this point, i thought : good for you! we'll both be vegans! Except, here lies the misconception that vegan is just about eating greens....)
so, this long post........
basically I'm having a whine about how hard it is to go vegan. Dad is more understanding and open minded (they're divorced) & even praised me for being environmentally conscious (i told him about the amount of water it takes to produce 1kg of meat VS 1kg of rice or wheat, etc).
any one else had similar troubles??
any tips?
in the mean time, i've had to give in and told mum i'm going to "eat normally" to save from further arguments
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