Vegans!!

[littlemissgrumpi]

I have a friend I've known for years and years. She's great, but the following is recently seriously getting on my nerves:

Myself and DH are regular half marathoners / love exercise / athletic builds / no health conditions / omnivores. We eat lots of veg, chicken and fish about twice a week, red meat about once a fortnight. Cow's milk in coffee and tea everyday. Pretty average. Said friend has always struggled with being overweight, not helped by the birth of her DD2 and is currently quite overweight and doesn't like to exercise. No judgement, each to their own. She's recently become vegan and is obsessed with telling me how worried she is for my health because I drink milk and eat red meat. It's almost laughable because I'm the fittest I've ever been & felt! I don't comment on her choice of vegan cakes etc so I really feel this is unreasonable.

The other day on a walk, she was huffing and puffing walking up the hill whilst telling me how unhealthy it is to be drinking cows milk and I really shouldn't have the beef burger for lunch. AIBU to think it's ridiculous??

@MintyFreshBreath

My brother and wife are vegans and have enforced it on my niece and nephews. My brother annoys me because he’s so virtuous with it 😤 Plus the kids are stick thin. One of them told me he really wanted to try the pepperoni pizza at school but when I told my brother what my nephew had said he nearly bit my head off. When I see other kids the same age as my niece/nephews, they look so much more robust. Those three get cold broccoli for a snack FFS. Makes me so angry.

You sound interfering and judgemental.

@Strokethefurrywall

Unfortunately, I know quite a few vegans and every single one thinks it's ok to lecture me and others

If she is commenting on your diet and your health then you are perfectly entitled to comment on her diet and her health. Let he be offended, perhaps she will stop

I wish my kids were stick thin vegans ,munching on broccoli at break time ,we are fat bastards who need to run ..

I'm not vegan but YABU for the title of this thread. It should minimally be 'new vegans' or 'my one really tedious vegan mate'.

But yeah, your mate's annoying.

I’m in the ‘your friend is a dick’ camp.

However, I don’t understand how anyone can justify eating meat and dairy. Eating a plant based diet is the single biggest thing you can do to help the environment. I hope in the future meat eating is considered the same way smoking is nowadays.

Is this a recent fad with her? It sounds like she has seen one of those 'videos' or 'documentaries' that twist, distort and lie and scaremonger. Being a vegan is very unhealthy, you are not getting the nutrients/calcium you need, and she clearly is an example of that.

I’d guess she’s insecure about her weight and knows you’re extremely fit and active so makes her feel worse, this is most likely her way to make herself feel better. I wouldn’t pay much attention to it, you’re obviously much healthier.

@MintyFreshBreath

My brother and wife are vegans and have enforced it on my niece and nephews. My brother annoys me because he’s so virtuous with it 😤 Plus the kids are stick thin. One of them told me he really wanted to try the pepperoni pizza at school but when I told my brother what my nephew had said he nearly bit my head off. When I see other kids the same age as my niece/nephews, they look so much more robust. Those three get cold broccoli for a snack FFS. Makes me so angry.

It's very cruel, isn't it? It's cruel and selfish. Evidence shows children like this scoff as much meat, dairy and sweets they can when alone or at friend's houses, and grow up with eating disorders.

Plants based whole foods is the healthiest diet you can eat. Vegans can load up on most crisps, oreos and bourbons though so being vegan alone isn't necessarily healthy.

I'm vegan for the animals not health but I know a shit ton more now about nutrition than I ever did before though.

@Kfjsjdbd

I’m in the ‘your friend is a dick’ camp.

However, I don’t understand how anyone can justify eating meat and dairy. Eating a plant based diet is the single biggest thing you can do to help the environment. I hope in the future meat eating is considered the same way smoking is nowadays.

If you switch to a vegan diet without doing proper research you can find that your body is quickly lacking in a lot of the nutrients it needs to function healthily.

I'd find that annoying too. As a near-omnivore, I found it tedious when a family member decided to cut out carbohydrate and came over all evangelical about inflammation and ketoadaptation and how bread and potatoes were literal poison, and would visibly shudder when I ordered cake with my coffee. We got over it without falling out. She's vegan nowadays and eats loads of bread and potatoes and cake

Three of my adult DC and one of my stepchildren became vegan in their teens, separately. DH and I don't quite know where that came from, but they were all proselytising pains in the neck for a while then calmed down while remaining vegan. Only the youngest, who has been vegan for just over two years, still has the occasional snipe at us over our mixed diet.

I am lactose intolerant so cutting stuff out isnt a big deal to me, no idea what I am Pisces-vegan? no idea I dont eat anything farmed but still eat oily fish once a week as its good for you.

I am rather alarmed by all the new products on the market, we have suddenly moved away from Soya which is perfecly fine and healthy to coconut oil and milk in everything, all this coconut cheese, ice cream, butter etc. I am not sure about all that its high fat.

@Strokethefurrywall

FGS, this isn’t a “vegan” thing, this is a “your friend” thing. “Vegan” doesn’t = “healthy” and no vegans claim that it is unless they’re following a strictly vegan whole food plant based diet.

Enough with lumping all vegans in together, theyre not a hive mind, other than not eating meat/dairy for animal welfare reasons…

Came here to say this exactly.

@Migrainesbythedozen

Is this a recent fad with her? It sounds like she has seen one of those 'videos' or 'documentaries' that twist, distort and lie and scaremonger. Being a vegan is very unhealthy, you are not getting the nutrients/calcium you need, and she clearly is an example of that.

Being vegan is not very unhealthy. This is myth perpetuated by people who are uncomfortable with animal suffering but still wish to consume animal products. Removing animal products from your diet and substituting them with plant based alternatives cannot, and does not, of itself make that diet unhealthy. The only nutrient vegans need to supplement is B12. Beyond that the health of their diet is down to their day to day choices, exactly the same as a non vegan.

It seems that so many people feel it is 'right' minded to lecture the rest of us about their food fads. Leave us alone to eat the meat diet that our digestive systems are adapted to.
I found a book my Mother had in the 1960s about the Stone Age diet. Also read about WW2 rationing, planned for healthy and sustaining.

@Sheilablessus

It seems that so many people feel it is 'right' minded to lecture the rest of us about their food fads. Leave us alone to eat the meat diet that our digestive systems are adapted to. I found a book my Mother had in the 1960s about the Stone Age diet. Also read about WW2 rationing, planned for healthy and sustaining.

There's not one single carnivorous trait in humans.

Some things are so obvious that you can safely ignore them, knowing that either everyone does know really and has some reason to pretend they don't, or they're so blinded you can't possibly persuade them.

I think it was Nick Knowles (of all people!) who ended up saying something that convinced me I didn’t have to eat meat to appease people.
Basically, don’t label it, people judge you and have preconceptions if you label it. If a friend serves you food with meat or dairy, it’s not the end of the world you can still eat it if you don’t want to say anything, just do whatever your comfortable with, eat what your comfortable with. You don’t have to be “a vegan” and live up to the activist stereotype perceived on this thread to be a veggie or vegan most of the time.

There's not one single carnivorous trait in humans.

That is an extremely ignorant statement. We have 4 canine teeth just like carnivores 🙄

we also have incisors & molars just like herbivores, because we are omnivores that needs nutrition from both to stay healthy

Eating vegan does not necessarily equal eating healthy, although it certainly can. I'm not a healthy vegan, but then again, I became vegan for animals and really wasn't a healthy omnivore or vegetarian either. I do get all the nutrients I need though.

Your friend is likely to be fervent about the things she is learning, and then choosing to pass that info to you, however, when the info is unwanted, I can see how it could be annoying. You are also 100% correct in stating you are healthier than her. As mentioned, eating vegan does not mean you will suddenly become healthy.

B12 is a supplement many vegans take because we don't eat bacteria riddled soil. We choose to take it in the form of a tablet, rather than get it from animals.

Oh, and someone who occasionally consumes meat is not vegetarian or vegan. They are reducing their consumption of animal products and eating more plant based meals, which can only be seen as a positive thing really. You can't go about changing the definition of something though.

*Being vegan is not very unhealthy. This is myth perpetuated by people who are uncomfortable with animal suffering but still wish to consume animal products.&

No it isn't @5128gap, it's perpetuated by people who know about nutrition & have pious vegan friends who eat like shit, whilst preaching to the world about how healthy they are. Slowly making themselves I'll & then shouting MH & Nuro problems

I haven't eaten meat or poultry since I was 6 years old

@RockinHorseShit

There's not one single carnivorous trait in humans.

That is an extremely ignorant statement. We have 4 canine teeth just like carnivores 🙄

we also have incisors & molars just like herbivores, because we are omnivores that needs nutrition from both to stay healthy

Our canine teeth are not capable of tearing through the skin and into the flesh of cows and pigs though. We need to process the flesh by cooking it in order to be able to consume it.

@5128gap you need to do some research 🙄

I think that when somebody ‘sees the light’ (with regards to anything - diet religion or politics) it makes sense that they want to reveal ‘the truth’ to the people that they love. If she is evangelical with regards to her veganism then there is no reason why you can’t discuss that with her and give her your own version of ‘the truth’ I. Regards to personal fitness etc.