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Heartbroken and Frustrated
Started
by jen w
on January 26, 2010
I am sitting here crying. I just watched the new Mercy For Animals Dairy video and I am just so incredibly sad. There are some truly horrible people out there. Those poor abused babies and their poor abused mothers. I want to help them! Save them! Love them! They give so much and get nothing but abuse, neglect, torture, and murder in return. Over the weekend, I read the part of Eating Animals about the pigs and the piglets. Don't get me wrong, the plight of all of these poor animals is absolutely horrible, but the part of that book about the pigs is just so awful. I want to help them! I just don't know how I am ever going to make a difference. I have been a vegan since July 2009 but I have not been able to inspire any of my friends or family to become vegetarian or vegan. Lately, I am just trying to get them to eat less meat. Like maybe a few meals a week without any meat. Just throwing out suggestions...but not nagging. I share my copies of Vegetarian Times so that they have a few good recipes to try if they want. I carry around Alicia's book and other vegan recipe books so if they are curious, they can get recipes or read them. I am trying not to be pushy, but I get so secretly mad and frustrated that they refuse to become informed. They don't want to know about what happens because in their minds they KNOW it is so awful, but then they will put that awfulness in their mouth and ingest it??? "Anything helps", right??? But when I see the videos, like the one about the egg industry with the people throwing away the male chicks like they are nothing but trash or this new dairy video, I just feel so helpless. I needed to vent with some people who understand. So thank you for listening (reading). I am so happy that Alicia and Michael will be on Oprah tomorrow. I am thrilled!!! Any exposure we can give to these factory farm horrors is awesome. And if it makes people curious enough to do a some research... even better.
When I first told my family I was no longer eating meat, they were genuinely concerned. They literally thought I was doing something awful to myself. That it was like some quack diet and I was going to die of malnutrition. And these are some smart women. Well informed and well read. They just had no idea what was involved in a plant based diet, and what it was really about beyond the stereotypes. Too many people simply don't have an understanding of it. And then over time they saw the changes in me, and now they, too, are actually interested. It took a long time, but now my mother has a stack of my vegetarian cookbooks she's borrowed and several copies of my VT. She's asking questions about what I eat and what I buy and slowly both she and grandma are starting to eat meat less and less. How much happier and healthier I am is something I just can't hide. While they may never go full veggie, they get it now. They understand and I couldn't be happier about it. So hang in there!! Sometimes people will surprise you, but understanding takes time.
I understand how you feel. I have been a vegan for the last 5 years and i am the joke of my family. Every family get to gether for the last 5 years all I hear is " so your not eating meat again?" like i ever started again and they always want me to explain why I am doing this. Then they will try to get me to eat meat. It is very frustrating and hurtful but I know what I do is for me and the animals that I love so much. I love now that I can get to know more people who face the same challenges as me. My mom used to be a vegetarian but gave it up too much pressure from friends and family. We all need support.
Maybe we could start some kind of penpal group here on The Kind Life... :)
It is frustrating. Often I think that either I myself am insane, or the complete rest of the world... But you have to think like it's very easy to just follow the herd, and that's why almost everyone is doing that. It's a safe option to them. They don't have to think for themselves or question things. I'd rather be the black sheep than that I'd have to follow the herd :)
For the past two months I was a lacto-ovo vegetarian and recently decided to give veganism a try after reading Alicia's book and talking to one of my friends who is a vegan. I am so sick of the conversations and debates I get into or the comments I hear when I tell people I no longer eat meat. "Why not?", "I guess I'm not coming over your house since you don't eat meat", "I guess you want be going out to eat anymore", like meat is the only thing on the planet to eat. Just yesterday, I was having a discussion with someone who told me that the Bible does not say anything about not eating meat. It only mentions not eating pork and fish with scales and that God put animals on this earth for us to eat. We went back and forth with this to the point where we just had to agree to disagree.
@rekabeka
As much as you don't like it that other people are trying to convince you to eat meat/dairy/etc, other people also don't like it when you try to convince them not to eat meat/dairy/etc.
@ all of us trying to Enlighten everyone esle, you just try your best by living by example. My husband has all the health ailments & eating behaviors like ReKabeka. I just stopped talking because you can't change a person,you can just change how you react. I just take a long breath & know that I love them & try my best.....Praying that they too will see the light......If not, at least i gave them that informmation. It's hard, I we've been married for close to 25 yrs. Stick to you guns, for you are on the true parh. Love & Peace
OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! how can anyone eat meat after watching something from a horrible horrow movie?????????????? These images are soooo totally burned in my brain. I don't get it. My mother-in-law once said that " Animals were meant to be eaten, why else would they be here?" see what I have to deal with...............Stay strong & Enlightened : )
I just want to thank all of you! It does feel like this world is going crazy and I needed to hear everything you all said. It was so great to hear from "like minded" people! A pen pal group would be awesome... even just this discussion is great! I have heard comments from people too, or seen the looks passed between people when I politely say "no thank you" to their food with nasty stuff in it. Sometimes it is so exhausting that people just don't get that this is an issue of extreme abuse for these creatures. I can deal with all of the comments and looks because I can see the animals in my mind and I do this for them... and I am not going back! So many of my family members and close friends are SUPER dedicated dog people. I wish they would make the connection. The Oprah show today showed a few things... like the poor chicks sliding around all crazy and the chickens who cannot walk. I kept thinking "Oh I hope my family and friends are watching this!"
Jen, I totally relate to your tears. I think this kind diet has made us a bunch of sniffling ninnies. I read about a pet being abused, I see the docs on food animals, I walk down an aisle in the store with meat, I just get all teary eyed.
Maybe its all the estrogen in the soy? Maybe not eating meat has taken all the agression out of us? Maybe we are just finally getting it. But I wouldn't trade my tears for all the steak and eggs in the world.
Julie asked how can anyone eat meat after watching the films. That's the problem. They don't want to. My husband is seeing the physical changes in me and is starting to flirt a bit with it. Yesterday he asked what I had that was like chicken. I gave him a package of seitan and he is going to try to use it as an exchange in one of his 'regular' recipes. Yay! But he won't watch any of the films I ask him to. And I don't push it.
My mom did watch the film 'Eating' and read 'The China Study'. She is going vegan. Yay!
Little steps. One day we may be the evolved world that the Kind folk wish we were.
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