After both being vegan for 5 years, my partner has gone back to calling themselves vegetarian and consuming dairy. Everything we eat shared is vegan, but too many inconsistencies piled up elsewhere and they never really adopted a fully animal-centric view. They buy leather, wool, etc but only second hand unless its a gift for someone else. In their mind the other person isn’t vegan, so theres a distinction if its not for their personal consumption. They’re against mammal breeding, but have a leopard gecko bought from a breeder, when the rest of our animal companions are rescues because they study reptiles and amphibians academically and breeders are some of the only reliable places to get them from. Stuff like that.

I’m not posting to trash on them, they’re still my partner and have been for almost 20 years. But its personally disappointing as I’ve felt more and more disconnected from everyone in my life due to ethical and ideogical reasons.

I think I have a harder time dealing with it because I’m nuerodiverse and my condition commonly correlates with “a strong sense of justice” or in other words an unwavering conviction once I’ve decided something is ‘right’ (which can become perverted justice just as easily). I’m glad we dont plan to have children, because like others in this thread mentioned, it’d be much more difficult to navigate. But I’m definitely interested in hearing how others deal with this disconnect while not just sabotaging all their relationships.

As for the weekly question, I ‘feel better’. Not physically, but emotionally and mentally, at least in regards to my personal actions. Spiritually as well, as I am a Buddhist and non-harm to other beings, but even specifically animals, is held as a moral ideal. I feel I am following in the footsteps of previous exemplary teachers from hundreds of years in the past, who advocated for veganism in even less practical circumstances than I am in.

I feel I can look at and interact with animals with a clean conscience and that my actions do have an effect on other, even if its not as strong as I’d like. One friend became vegan just by my jokingly suggesting a vegan pact for a weeklong trip we had after having discussions about moral ethics. Positive actions lead to positive self-perception that leads to more general happiness and fulfillment. On the flipside, more despair at not being able to stop animals from being killed and realizing how little other people care every time we talk.

Considering I no longer get out of breath when I walk, deal with indigestion, or have rough skin I’d say life has improved significantly since I went vegan.

Though, as I’ve mentioned previously, I sometimes feel a lot more lonely and isolated from the rest of the world. I live in a pretty big and diverse city so it’s genuinely nonsensical to me how few vegans I’ve actually come across in real life (I’ve met, like, four other vegans, one of whom “isn’t vegan” anymore.)

As for what I’m up to, I’m moving to a different house so I can finally start my garden up again. It’s been way too long lol.

For me this is an easy one to answer because there are so many ways. Standing up for what I actually believed in and sticking to something that is important to me helped me stay more confident in other aspects of my life. I realize that no one is going to live my life the way I want for me and making this change and standing up for myself and my beliefs has had ripple effects throughout my life including my relationships and job. On top of this my health improved tremendously, granted veganism is not a diet and you can be an unhealthy vegan but I decided I wanted to not only stand up for animal rights but learn how to do it in a way that will be long lasting so I learned about whole food plant based eating. My health did a 180, in my 30s I was obese and in my 40s I look and feel better than I did at any point in my life.

How has becoming vegan improved your life?

Oh god so many ways. I’m healthier, I feel less guilty, I feel a deeper connection and joy to the food I make. It’s a confidence booster that while I’m a disaster of a human being in a lot of ways I am at least genuinely able to try and fight injustice and critically examine my own behaviour.

As to what’s been going on, I’ve been digging for treasure! Finding sapphire at a low grade field near me. It’s nice to vibe in the forest and get some exercise. Pics related

It made me so much more aware of others around me, non-humans and humans alike. But I’m not gonna lie overall it’s had an adverse affect on me. It’s more stress mentally speaking, my worries about how to raise my kid got octupled, it opened up space between me and my wife and I feel more alienated from those around me.

Being vegan has led me to be a much more organised person. Carnists have no fucking idea, but they can just leave the house and do their shit without thinking. Me, I gotta decide what I’m going to eat for the day and often I gotta make it the day before and prepare the box and cutlery before I leave home.

Being vegan has also given me a lot of confidence and resilience. I’m one of the few people who still masks, and I’m quite involved in a lot of orgs, and being vegan has prepared me for the shade and bullshit I get from libs and chuds. Honestly now their opinion means fuck all to me.

Lastly, and least importantly, it’s easy to meet new people. If I go somewhere new, vegans always connect to other vegans as we know what we’re going through. Not that vegans are perfect, but on average a vegan is a more righteous person than a carnist. And we tend to be nicer, cooler, and more interesting. Really.

I’m having the most difficult and stressful year of my life and yet my blood pressure is down, my physical fitness is the best it has been in a decade and my junk food consumption is almost non-existent.

No longer feeling any dissonance when interacting with animals and sharing my love for them is a huge relief as well.

How has becoming vegan improved your life?

I can look animals in the eyes without guilt.

With respect to the social isolation veganism can cause, I moved to a way less vegan friendly place about 4 years ago. I don’t really have any IRL friends here and it’s wild how much more peaceful I feel than I don’t need to navigate eating with carnists. I had a family member visit a while back and she got a burger when we were out for lunch (it was a food court, otherwise we took her to vegan places or cooked at home) and I thought to myself “I haven’t felt this feeling in a long time!”. Once and a while I find myself forgetting carnist options exist lol.

I’m not saying this is healthy or good for everyone and I really feel for people who have people they love and live with who are not vegan. Being someone who is truly happy when alone helps a lot.

one way that being vegan has improved my life is that it’s reduced the stress of cognitive dissonance, by which i mean i feel like my dietary choices are in line with my values and beliefs. i’m a practicing Buddhist and not killing is the first precept in Buddhism - and there’s millennia of history of at least vegetarian if not entirely vegan cuisine coming from countries and societies where other people took that precept seriously.

for me personally, another moment that impacted me was when my wife and i adopted two cats that had been discovered in an empty house. they were such playful, intelligent, and obviously feeling creatures; what in my life made me feel like cows, pigs, or chickens were any different?

anyway, that’s sort of what’s improved. it’s definitely created more complications too as so many others have pointed out. my wife’s not vegan, which bothers me occasionally. my mom totally doesn’t understand what being vegan is; she seems to think it’s basically keto somehow? i travel a lot for work and in some of the really rural places i visit, finding vegan options can be tough. i don’t mind that, but when i travel with co-workers they love to give me shit about being vegan. i keep showing them delicious food options (for example, Frisco, CO, has an amazing Vietnamese restaurant with some of the best vegan food i’ve ever had), but they still like to mock. oh well. i hope that by living according to my values, i will have an impact on them even if they don’t admit it.

How has becoming vegan improved your life?

So many ways, but the one I’ll say is i eat much healthier now. I used to never eat my fruits and veggies, and i lived out of the freezer with prepackaged meals. Now i could go live in my garden

My local vegan only food truck stays winning. They were at an event last night for local artisan crafts like smithing and glass blowing. There were supposed to be 4 truck there but they were the only one that showed up. I know one wasn’t there because some jackass stole their whole truck. I need to follow up on that because it was pretty shitty taking someone’s means of living like that.

But as I was waiting for my buffalo “chicken” sammich last night, a family was standing next to me and was looking at the menu and the mom said “Wait, it’s all vegan? Yuck!” and they left. I thought it was funny seeing people so judgemental in real life instead of dorks on the vegan subreddit pretending to be oppressed and talking about “but lions” and whatnot. In any case by the time I had my sammie eaten, the truck had like 20 people waiting on food and it wasn’t letting up. They made bank I’m sure.

Ok story out of the way. Question: Can y’all share some of your favorite soup recipes? It’s soup season here and I wanna change things up a bit from my chili and potato soup. Right now I’m thinking spicy black bean, something lentil, or my standby veggie mixed bean. But I want more variety for sure. I fucking love soup lol.

Edit to answer question of the week, sorry lol: Fucking goodbye gout flair-ups! Secondly, I’m a lefty of course but becoming more aware of both the ethical and the ecological issues behind factory farming has helped me further ground myself in my belief system. I fully believe that part of socialism absolutely should be animal liberation, both for stopping violent treatment and slaughter of animals but also for climate reasons. When I was first considering going vegan like 6 years ago, I was mostly gonna do it for climate reasons, but after working in the ag industry, I learned real quick how awful it really was and now do it for animal rights too. I’m 1.5 years vegan now and very vocal about it.

Oh hell yeah, there’s a vegan megathread now?!

I’m cooking really yummy food. Its definitely much tastier and healthier than what I ate before.

Also has made me more aware of the exploitation this world runs on unnecessarily. I’m looking for more ways on reducing my harm to others and the planet.

Can’t say my cognitive dissonance for everything has gone away, but learning about veganism has improved my ability to align my actions with my beliefs more.