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  Posted by AlwaysAimHigher at 01/16/14 05:12:19

  I for one like people that just mind their business. Like you said, its a shame to ruin a pleasant conversation with "OMG are you planning on eating THAT?". I was with a friend at a restaurant that serves both vegan and non-vegan food and since I am not fully committed to vegetarian yet, I ordered a milkshake to go with my salad. She changed her attitude instantly and all the conversation that followed was tense. Didn't like how she made me feel and all we both wanted was to meet up and catch up. :(
  
  

  
  
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  Posted by savetheanimals at 01/16/14 19:20:25

  I 100% agree with everything you said above Hammer. I disagree with AlwaysAim and want to talk about why your wrong. I hate when people avoid questioning the truth. Minding your business is good when their is something personal is being talked about. Veganism is not personal. It is an important issue because animals are being murdered. If I was at the restaurant with you I would have a long debate with you about how cows have to be raped to make milk.Like all other mammals cows need to be pregnant to be able to make milk. A cow is raped with a long metal pole or sometimes humans put the bull sperm in by hand. When a cow gives birth the calf is immediately taken from the mother cow. If it is a female it is in for a life of rape just like her mom. If it is a male he is given no room to move fattened up and sent to get murdered in the slaughterhouse to be made into veal. The females are not exempt from getting murdered at the slaughterhouse. After they stop being able to have babies they too are sent to the slaughterhouse. Naturally cows can live to be up to 25 years old. But on dairy farms they are murdered when they are only 5-7 years old meaning that most dairy cows live less than a third of their natural life span.
  
  Your opinion is not personal even if your the only one who believes those ideas (which is never the case). You should put your opinion up on the table with the amount of prove and evidence the claim needs. Depending on how extraordinary the claim is your going to need the same extraordinary evidence.

  
  
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  Posted by savetheanimals at 01/16/14 19:50:34

  Sorry I thought I needed to go so, I rushed and posted. I have some more time. The reason your opinion is not personal is it has an impact on all of society. We need more debate in society. You have the right to whatever your opinion is but, you do not have the right to stop someone from changing your opinion. Your opinion can be dangerous even if you don't think it is. It could harm someone (like the animals). Your opinion should be debated out with everyone so, society has the best ideas. You don't have to share your opinion but, then your in for a long one sided debate.
  
  Regarding Hammer: I am obviously a confrontational vegan. I also hate when vegans try to fit in with funny remarks about their vegan self, or simply try not to say anything at all. We need to get more humans to become vegan. Eating animals and exploiting them to get other "products" from them is not right and should be illegal. Animals are victims. I always am always confrontational with all my views and will defend them in debate any time I see a good opportunity.
  
  I really do have to go now or I would talk about this forever.

  
  
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  Posted by The Hammer at 01/16/14 22:08:20

  Thanks for the replies !
  After my post, i also had more time to think. As i said, my vegan friends were confrontational when i had milk in my coffe. LOL. Annoying at the time but it helped me.
  They were confrontational but NOT personal. I remember one vegan who once told me out of the blue "you are not a REAL vegan because you use shaving gel from that and that company." (It was a company blacklisted by Peta and she was a Peta tool.)
  Mind you, i was 20 years or so vegan and that girl was vegan for only a few years.
  So i would like to add that being confrontational IMO is but being personal is counterproductive because you force people to become defense.
  
  Conversation with a non veg person :
  Good : "I don't eat meat because animals are treated very cruel nowadays."
  Wrong : "You are very bad because you eat meat."

  
  
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  Posted by DC1346 at 01/16/14 23:57:32

  There's an old Bing Crosby song in which this famous crooner sings, "You've got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative ..."
  
  The problem with confrontational comments is that it forces non-vegans on the defensive and let's face it. Vegans in the U.S. are facing an uphill because the expectation that meat should play an important role in our daily diet is part of our mainstream cultural beliefs.
  
  I have found that the best way to broach the subject of as plant based diet is to approach this from a dietary viewpoint. I also think that such a discussion could be timely because this country is facing an obesity epidemic.
  
  If you're dining out at a vegan-friendly restaurant with friends and you hear a buddy musing over calories, that would be the perfect time to talk about the nutritional and dietary benefits of a plant based diet.
  
  In doing this I also think that it's important to refrain from impassioned soapbox rhetoric. You and your friends are after all most likely getting together to socialize and no one enjoys being lectured.
  
  Another good lead in would be a talk about grocery prices. I mean really ... have any of you noticed the rising cost of meat? Not only has a plant based diet been good for me but if I make everything from scratch, my food costs are a lot lower than they would be if I still ate meat.

  
  
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  Posted by Thalassa4 at 11/02/15 00:53:23

  There has to be a balanced approach. If all you do is attack people or vent at them, they'll see you as a crazy religious extremist. But if you do not confront people with the facts, then they'll never know. A cultural revolution doesn't happen passively, but like Dr.Martin Luther King, it's probably best to win people over with love and reason rather than ranting and raving.
  
  I honestly have a hard time NOT ranting and raving about the impact of flesh consumption on the very earth we live upon. There's nothing more annoying than someone who is paranoid about the UN who keeps eating bacon because they think the UN scientific recommendation of a vegan or vegetarian diet is pinko communism, those people really anger me, because they're willfully ignorant and behave like rebellious adolescents...
  
  I read an article recently that suggested that many people will not change eating habits by reason, even though technically there are more good reasons to be vegetarian or vegan than to not be...that's extremely annoying. ..that visceral or gut level impact is what's going to change the majority of people.
  
  Still, you can't just be abusing people and putting them on the spot because it's simply not helpful. Although I will admit to personally attacking bacon worshipping strangers on the Internet with complete impunity.

  
  
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  Posted by Star the magic vegan at 01/18/16 18:43:20

  It is not that vegans should be pleasing, rather it is that vegans should be pleased.

  
  
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  Posted by Robinwomb at 01/19/16 02:59:30

  I like the idea of confronting the behavior but not personally attacking the person. I think this makes all the difference. Timing is crucial as well. No one likes to be nitpicked at while they are eating. There is a time and place to talk about it.
  
  Living by example is probably the most powerful tool we have, and vegan cookbooks, magazines, blogs, autobiographies etc are great too, to show that vegans can do everything omnis do, and that we thrive.
  
  I like to wear vegan t shirts on occasion, and I have been told by other vegans that it is obnoxious. I find that odd. The shirts I wear do not attack anyone. They uplift vegan values. And they have started many a positive convesation with omnis.
  
  On the otherhand, not every vegan is out to change the world and convert others. It is perfectly fine if someone chooses to be discreet about their veganism. They are already doing far more than most of the world.

  
  
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  Posted by SasquAtch at 01/21/16 08:21:04

  I feel same as Robinwomb when it comes to confronting people while we are eating. I was taught from a young age that our energy is combined with food we prepare. Negativity can be injested, or love. Dinner conversation should be light, not dark. Perhaps inviting a friend to try a delicious Vegan meal would be more convincing than shunning them for their programmed choices. I need to be more forward in this respect. Anyone trying a new pattern needs support! Thank you, HappyCow &)

  
  
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  Posted by GOLGO13 at 01/21/16 17:28:49

  It's possible there is a need for a bit of both approaches. However, timing has to be right in all cases. I've only been "mostly" vegan for about 3 weeks and have watched a lot of youtube videos on the subject. I find a lot of the aggressive youtubers as crude and annoying. That approach does not have impact on me (quite frankly it's hard to watch).
  
  I think some people think you can show someone a few documentaries and instantly convert them. This reminds me of people trying to convert someone to a new religion. It's not that simple. Not to mention documentaries tend to have some bias and selective tendencies on what they present.
  
  For me personally, the aggressive vegans would be a turnoff. Just as aggressive religious people turn me off. But, there are people who would need an aggressive approach used and it can work. What I think is important is to find the right opportunities for such a thing. Otherwise people will think your a nutball and not receive the message.
  
  I also think just because someone believes in a certain thing doesn't mean everyone has to. So while I think it's good to show people what being a Vegan is and what it's all about...they can make their own decision on if that's something they want to do. Just like politics...Just because someone states the reason they are on a side of an issue doesn't mean everyone agrees and needs to think that way.

  
  
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  Posted by ahimsa32fa at 01/22/16 05:14:47

  If you saw someone beating a child, would you speak up or choose not to be "confrontational"?
  
  What if you saw someone beating a dog?
  
  What if you saw someone drinking cow's milk (supporting a very cruel and destructive industry)?
  
  When one knows that animal agriculture in general (but especially factory farming) is a major contributor to global warming, environmental destruction and the suffering of countless non-human animals, should one choose to ignore it in favor of being "non-confrontational"?

  
  
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  Posted by anahidscv at 01/25/16 16:11:21

  First of all I am grateful that more and more options are available for Vegans. From supermarkets, to restaurants, to you name it, it is becoming way of life and I believe there will come a time that eating meat will be the thing of the past. Meanwhile, it angers me that those who are quite aware of the suffering of the animals, and yet by CHOICE they eat meat, drink milk and etc. Someone made a comment on this post that you can't convert just by watching youtube or videos. I have to say, I did. I saw the suffering of the animals, and that was enough for me to make the switch. What else would I need? My tastebuds are not as important than the life of a living being who intensely will suffer if I ate meat or drank milk. That is plain cruel and Vegans do have every right to speak up. My anger is for those knowingly continue to eat meat and drink the milk from a non human animal. So, for those out there that have an addiction to meat, grow up, face the facts, and stop being so selfish.

  
  
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  Posted by Star the magic vegan at 01/30/16 22:11:32

  After reading the responses above, I am saddened that so many have missed the point. Vegans do not convert people. Vegans do not change people and people do not become something by living a vegan lifestyle. Furthermore, the term vegan is ridiculous. We do not need such a label to identify ourselves, be categorized, marginalized and ignored due to some status people think they derive from the term "Vegan."
  
  What a vegan is truly, is a normal person who has a normal diet. We have a sense of humanity left in us because we choose to live the dietary aspect of our lives correctly. It is normal to eat a salad. It is not normal to eat chicken embryos, mammary secretions from other species and dead carcasses.
  
  We do not convert people, we restore their humanity. We do this by teaching them compassion for all living beings. We explain how our diets do effect the lives of fellow Earthlings that are also cruelly labeled, in this case not as vegans, but as animals. We show them the impact of our decisions on the rain forests, the oceans and the ecosphere.
  
  Western culture is highly formed into a thought pattern rooted in all Abrahamic traditions of religion that conversion into a status or cult is a necessary procedure. Going vegan is more like Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and Jainism where there is no conversion. In these far eastern philosophies, one engages in these practices so that one's inherent wisdom, love, compassion, strength and truth may emerge. There is nothing to become, we are simply restored through the practice of living a vegan life style.
  
  And what is restored? Our health, our sanity, our humanity, our compassion, our wisdom, our happiness and this list goes on and on.
  
  Therefore, there is nothing to confront and there is nothing to please as far as this topic is concerned. That is except, perhaps, pleasing the vegans, or rather our fellow humans who walk with true fellowship of heart in the Earthling community of all sentient beings, with some good vegan food.