Be Strong Be Vegan!

[VGnizm]

First, my life loving greetings to all accompanied by my apologies for the irregularity of my presence here!

It has been and continues to be an extraordinary development that has occurred in my life since I embraced Veganism early this year. As time goes by I notice that everything in my life is coming together around this event and since I am also working in developing a Vegan food project it is everything Vegan. I don’t know if a similar effect is felt by others who become Vegan but through my contacts in Social Media I notice that Vegans are a very activist, vocal type of people and it is not true that they are aggressive about it. I think it is since non-Vegans are very defensive which makes it look that way.

I have noticed this even in my personal surroundings. Friends and family become defensive as soon as we sit in a restaurant and I start to order food and start asking about if it is cruelty-free or not. Meaning if it has cream or butter or other not clearly indicated ingredients. And for some reason I have the feeling that the defensiveness stems from the fact that people feel as if someone is telling them they must change their habits. Knowing that food pleasure has a large share of people’s satisfaction it makes sense. But I also think people relate to the empathy towards animals and it embarrasses them, especially those that have pet animals. I associated this to how we resent wake up calls. We know we need them and even program them consciously, but we resent them when they ring.

Now I wish to speak about the main subject and which is the Be Strong, Be Vegan message. We are building our Life Loving Foods™ campaigns around this message accompanied with a Rich in Protein message. The concept is built on de-bunking the myth that we need meat for protein. Because medical research indicates that people need a high intake of protein to help maintain muscle development and prevent aging and many other arguments, which are most probably founded, people start to say that we need to eat meat because vegetables cannot provide high concentrations of protein.

For that purpose, we are concentrating on innovating in making high in protein sweets such as cookies and slogans such as, ‘Protein does not have to be Meat and it can also be Sweet! ‘, while we continue developing our regular products around the, ‘Protein does not have to be Meat and it can also be Wheat!’, theme. Basically, we are orienting our products and mission around this idea in addition to our original mission of providing cost-effective, functional Vegan versions of popular foods.

So, we are campaigning and will soon be lecturing at Industry events about this concept. We are also developing this with input from activists through Social Media. And we are also developing this with companies supplying the school catering system along these lines arguing that it is much easier to have people receive their protein requirements from sweets than from mock-meat products that often fail the taste/texture comparison test to real meats. This is especially true for consumers who are omnivores. Vegan sweets would logically reduce the reliance on rich in vegetable protein meals and open the door to removing/reducing meat from main courses.

Any insight, comments or opinions for or against this approach would be highly appreciated and will surely contribute towards improvements and will be debated in Social Media as well as in open platforms. Any links to resources about this topic would also be highly appreciated.

PS – I presented this idea to consumers at a VeggieWorld event a few weeks ago in Germany and found many of them very receptive to this idea.

[Jamie in Chile]

I think you are right about the aggressive/defensive dynamic - any criticism of a person's morality or integrity - whether direct or indirect, polite or not, is going to cause a splash.

Perhaps in restaurants when you sit down at the table you can try and wander off immediately to the bar or other side of the restaurant and start quizzing a waiter about what's in the products out of earshot, or review the menu in advance on the website for those occassions when you know the venue in advance.

[VGnizm]

Yes i agree i could be more discreet but i feel it is natural to share my Vegan habits with others. More so since i noticed that most people have as little knowledge of Veganism as i had a year ago.

One year ago i was an omnivore but would easily have qualified as a carnivore. So i am absolutely not judgemental about meat eating but i feel that had i been concious of this issue earlier i would most probably have become Vegan sooner and been much happier.

I try to tell people that it feels great on both a mental and physical level. Empathy creates a sense of self security for some reason. One would think that feeling with others makes one weaker but it actually does not at all. And eating only plants seems to be much lighter on the system. It is like driving with ethanol instead of diesel.

Just my two pence

[Jamie in Chile]

I suggest to promote veganism in the sense of not eating meat or eggs is a productive thing to do but if you are asking three questions before you order bread and a vegetarian salad it may seem so radical and awkward that it puts people off. Therefore my thoughts are not to be shy about my avoidance of meat or eggs but yes to be shy about my avoidance of cake or some breads for example.

[VGnizm]

I know what you mean and i absolutely agree

It is generally ' can you please not sprinkle cheese on my spaghetti and tomato sauce ' or ' please don't put mayonaise in my vegetable sandwich ' kind of remarks.

[VGnizm]

Some interesting data about plant based protein benefits:

https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/new-research-says-plant-based-diet-best-for-planet-and-people

https://www.uhc.com/health-and-wellness/nutrition/power-of-plant-protein