Help! I'm a vegan and my family is as carniverous as a starving pride of lions!?

Question

How do I convince them to change their ways?

I've tried everything I can think of, I've tried to show them how it causes a ton of pollution, how unhealthy it is, and how much pain and abuse the animals go through, but they won't budge!

Any ideas?

Answer 1

going about it the wrong way...

the pollution and the harming of animals is very bad...

telling them it is unhealthy will accomplish nothing...

need the pictures and the articles that give the information on: Alzheimer's, e coli contamination, pesticides, mad cow contamination and human ,antibiotics, etc. etc.

eating unclean crab, lobster,etc.

put life insurance on them and make your self the beneficiary and tell them that they are eating themselves to death and will leave you all alone...

Answer 2

Would you want to be convinced to change your ways? Vegans must take supplements to get all the vitamins and nutrients they need since they don't eat any meat or dairy. I get what your saying about the animal cruelty and i wish it weren't so, however, people will always eat meat ( I do, and i'm not ashamed to admit it to you). It's your choice to be vegan just as its your family's choice not to be.

Hmm, I think its just as condescending of you to assume that non vegan/vegetarians need educating. Plants in fact do breathe. What makes you think your way is right? If you talk to your family the way your talking in this post then I can feel their pain. Perhaps its you thats lacking in the education department as well as calcium, iodine, vitamin b12 and Vitamin D, all of which comes from meat and milk. Maybe you should crack a few books before coming on here and telling the majority of us we're wrong. Vegans make up 0.2%-1.2% of the US population, so thats quite a bit of people your claiming to "educate".

Answer 3

Who told you that it is your business trying to "convert" your family or anyone else that you know.

The only thing that you've done is make them less likely to consider being vegetarian or even reduce the amount of animals products that they eat.

The first thing that you should have learned before becoming vegan is that you can't change ANYONE. They can only change when the thought comes naturally.

Thank you, but we already have enough preachy teenagers making other vegan people look like obsessive freaks.

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If you tell people that they are committing "mass murder", they will immediately blow you off as an immature child that's caught up in some sort of cult or fad.

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"My family bothers me about my eating habits just as much if not more than I bother them about theirs."

So basically you are at the same level as childish teasing and bickering? No, that isn't going to get you anywhere. Sorry.

Answer 4

I just started being a Vegetarian about a month ago and it was because of my girlfriend, how she did it was... well I guess it was because she didn't like me eating meat but didn't force me to stop, and I love her and what she believes in and when I thought about it, I do feel really bad for the animals because they don't deserve that treatment and my family are carniverous too and they keep pressuring to eat meat again.

Just like when they test things on animals, its inhumane and inaccurate, just because a bunny doesn't die using some make up doesn't meant a human couldn't

My advice after that long ramble lol would be to just keep telling telling them why you think they should stop and ask them to think about it, think about if they were in that cows, pigs, chickens, etc... shoes, would they really want the same treatment

Answer 5

why don't you stop and move on if you have tired everything and still nothing.then just forget about it.you are a vegan its your person choice you cant make other be one unless if they want and in this case they don't want to be a vegan

Answer 6

It is sad to see that you are merely looking for someone to agree with your view.

The fact that you think that your opinion and lifestyle is right and others' is wrong, and that you should educate them, is condescending to begin with. This holds to any opinion or lifestyle, including the vegan one.

Your family will probably stop trying to convince you to change your ways if you stop doing the same to them. Even if they still bug you, you now have the right to say that since you are not interfering with what they do, they should not interfere with you.

Killing of animals also occurs when it comes to harvesting crops and clearing huge areas of natural habitats to make space for farms. Not only do these animals die, but we don't get to eat them too! If your concern are the poor animals, then start growing your own food. If you can't completely stop killing animals yourself, stop annoying the rest of us about it.

And what is so wrong about breeding animals for food? If I was a cow, I'd be happy to be fed all the time instead of looking for food, get protection from natural dangers, have all the health care I need, and die mercifully at my prime age instead of suffering as an old cow. s***w the wild, I'm heading for the slaughter house!

Not to say that whoever thinks animals suffer to reach our kitchen is wrong. I'm saying that I am entitled to my opinion as much as anyone else so long as I don't harm any HUMAN life.

Answer 7

How do you get them to change their ways? Would you like if they tried to get you to change your ways? Please don't be one of those vegans who tries to push their ideas down everyone's throat.  To each his own.  If they want to eat meat and you have told them how you feel then let them eat meat.  It is a free country.  I am a vegan and my best friend hunts deer.  It isn't an issue with us.  I am not going to change him and he is not going to change me so we just accept each other and we love each other.

Answer 8

BAHAHAHA!!! :D I love the way you have worded this question. I cant believe no one else saw the humor in it! I agree with that Robert dude (I think that was his name? Took so long to register so i could answer this question) I went vegan before pregnancy and then got hyperemesis and could only eat wheat and dairy goods or starve to death so not much option. But I know a well planned strict vego or vegan diet is great for your health (which is why I am still so healthy considering wot ive been through) and I was suprised when I went veggo how meat eating DOES cause pollution (chain of events) but I was never aware of this before. Anyway as far as 'convincing' your carnivorous reli's fact is they probably dont really care about their health and are happy living the way they do and dont know the facts (or how feral meat smells/tastes when u havnt had it for a while) my in laws are major meat eaters and 'protein dieters' (not that they are skinny or anything. But you know what?? Recently they went on ANOTHER fad diet which was actually almost veggo (ie a soup diet with vegetable soup with beef stock) better than nothing. Try not to come across know it all-ish whilst you probably do know better - having educated yourself - the best thing you can do is change yourself and hope that others notice the difference it has made in your life XO hope all works out :)

Answer 9

You shouldn't force your beliefs onto other people. Just inform them if they ask you about it. By trying your hardest to change someone else's eating habits, they'll only become more hostile and annoyed at you. But you can suggest (and i do mean suggest, don't force) that occasionally you eat a vegan meal - or a mainly vegan meal if they want to add cheese or something. I managed to get my family to all eat pasta with lentils and split peas one day. They liked it, but weren't used to un-processed food and felt funny the next day.

My family is also very carnivorous. They get ridicuously annoyed at me for eating different - i can't imagine what it would be like if I was bugging them about their meat eating.

mollyg79 - vegans do not have to take supplements. I don't. And my last blood test showed that I had normal levels of protein/iron/B12/calcium

Answer 10

They most likely aren't going to change their ways.  We each must live our own lives.  You tried, that is all you can do.  If they don't want to change, they're not going to change.

And while it may cause pollution, I might remind you that plants are what clean the air of that pollution.  So you eating plants isn't exactly helping the situation, either.

And plants are just as alive as any animal.  

Its the circle of life.  That's how the game is played.  Living things die, so that others can live.  Then we die, and our remains feed the plants nutrients.  C'est la vie.

Add-on:

Again, I see what you are saying.  But I reiterate that plants are as alive as any animal.  What makes it different to commit mass murder (as you put it, though I agree its accurate) on animals than it is on plants?

That plants can't scream when they are killed?  That plants can't cry when they are picked out of the ground?  IT IS ALL LIFE.  It is still killing when you eat a celery stalk, or a leaf of lettuce, or a squash, or any other kind of vegetable.

You haven't evolved beyond anything.  You are still eating something that was once alive.  An inability to move does not make it less alive.

C'est la vie.  Death is part of life.

Add-on:

What, are we feeling bad that it turns out that being vegetarian or vegan doesn't make you a better person?  That you are still the same killer that us carnivores are?

Life is life.  Deal with it.

Add-on:

Perhaps a biology course is in order.  Plants do breathe; and be glad they do, because if they didn't our atmosphere would be fairly unbreathable very quickly.  They breathe Carbon Dioxide and emit Oxygen.

There is some evidence to suggest that plants do, in fact, have intelligence of a sort.  Talking to them, as well as playing music around them, has been shown to help them grow.  They do have something of a nervous system, which controls their body functions.  There is a fairly good possibility that they do, in fact, feel pain.

I might also point out that evidence suggests they want to survive.  How do you know that an animal wants to live?  Isn't it when they defend themselves if they believe they are in danger?  Maybe the run, maybe they fight; point is, they struggle to live.  

Well, plants also struggle to live.  For example, some trees, when attacked by certain parasites, send out a pheremone signal that tells the other trees to emit chemicals that will protect the other trees.  One tree is lost, but made the effort to save the rest.  Other plants have poisons.  Poison Ivy immediately comes to mind, but some plants are even deadly.

Marijuana gives a high, but its as a protection.  The animal that attempts to eat it will get high and disoriented, and no longer be capable of continuing to hurt the plant.

Plants may not be able to move (though some can), but they protect themselves just like animals.  You are seriously underestimated the value of plants.

And I am not suggesting that you give up your beliefs, or your lifestyle.  As I said, its part of the circle of life.  The only way to not kill is to accept death through starvation yourself.  Basic logic says you will not go that far, nor should you.  All I am saying is that you are ready to attack your family's choices of food based on the idea they are killing.

That may be true, but the same is true of you.  A life is a life, even plant life.

Answer 11

Tell them to balance theyre food out but what i think your saying is an exxageragation...what you say is a lie it doesnt cause alot of poullution but your kinda right it does cause pollution.....noo animals dont go through much pain...what i think you see is proppaganda....

Answer 12

Accusing someone of murder is certainly no way to win any argument.

Answer 13

Just because your a vegan doesnt mean your family needs to change their ways, they arent pressuring you to eat meat, are they? So leave them alone.

Answer 14

Seeing how you wonderfully you describe your family and their eating habits (unhealthy, murder), I don't know how should be ashamed of whom?

How about leaving them alone?? Unless you don't mind them telling you  that you should get off your high horse and eat meat like a the rest of the family? No.. being pushy like that is not right is it??

Answer 15

My family is the same way, and the best advice I have is to leave it as "To each his own." They aren't going to change their ways, and you aren't going to change yours (I hope). I am a vegetarian and the only person who accepted the change in my eating habits from day one was my Grandma. Everyone else gave me c**p, so I gave it to them back, till I figured out that they weren't going to change me and I wasn't going to change them and the best we could do was leave it all alone. Now I eat my food, they eat theirs, and it's all good. There are still some jabs here and there but now it's all in good fun.

Answer 16

I'm sorry to tell you this but they will never change their carniverous ways. I am a carnivore myself so and i know how bad the animals are treated and things like that. But it is just too damned delicious to give up and there is nothing that will change that.

Answer 17

being vegan is a personal choice, one shouldnt push their vegan ways like one shouldnt eat their carniverous choices on a vegan. just respect their own choices.

Answer 18

It may just be the way you've worded it, but this comes off as hypocritical and ill-thought.  I don't see anything wrong with you altering the way you eat and presenting information to those around you, however once you've given them information it is time to let that settle and allow them to make their own choices.  It is not your place to tell people how to live despite how wrong you believe it is.

Just a small point, you ask why people think vegans are condescending?  It's because we've all had at least one run in with the vegan who won't stop preaching.  So don't be that person.  The more it gets harped on about, the less anyone wants to listen.  Present your information logically and trust them to make a decision that suits them. You cannot force it.