#i truly go buck wild when ppl ask me about veganism.. i'm so sorry but i hope this was helpful fjsdfha

[thedalishelves]

Hey! I saw that you were vegan and I have a bit of a problem that maybe you could help with (or not, it's cool either way). I have wanted to change my diet to be a vegan for the longest time, but my parents just deadass don't respect it? I'm young, so I live with my parents and I eat what they cook and etc, and when I expressed the desire to be vegan, or at least vegetarian, they ignored me. Sometimes I have to go days w/o eating bc they cook meat n such. Any tips or is this unfixable for now?

first of all that’s really cool that u wanna go vegan and thank you for asking me!! i dealt with this too! i first went vegetarian when i was 13 and my parents convinced me to just give up red meat. after about two months i excused myself from the dinner table one night and just sobbed in the bathtub for like 20 minutes because i felt so bad about eating a chicken. after that they realized how Extra i am about this and reluctantly let me do my thing (with some persuading from me: tips will follow)

also this is gonna be long sorry omg this is what happens when ppl ask me about being vegan jfdkshafks i’m putting it under a cut just bc it would literally take up people’s entire dash

so i’d recommend going vegetarian first for sure. it’s what i always recommend anyway. slowly phasing out animal products will help SO MUCH with adjusting and cravings. i was vegetarian for 4 years before i went vegan! but for you specifically it’ll expand the amount of stuff you can eat that your parents make. meat is the staple in a lots of families’ meals, but i’m guessing they’ll often make a little side dish or something? eat a lot of that!! 60% of what i ate was the green beans and rice my mom always made for a side dish

ask to help your parents with cooking! try to separate your food whenever possible. so like if they’re making spaghetti with meat sauce (gross ik my dad always used to make it), just say you’d prefer it without the sauce and grab a little bowl before it’s mixed in with the meat. (i used to add butter to it.) basically just any dish that could be vegetarian: take a little serving before the meat is added. i did this all the time and it gave me a lot of good meals (another example in case this is vague: i’d scoop a bit of salad into my bowl before my mom added bacon to it)

also i found it really helpful to ask for VERY cheap vegetarian/vegan foods. i’d always ask my dad to buy beans and lentils and because they’re like 50 cents a can or whatever, he couldn’t reasonably say no. (these are so versatile, even if you don’t know how to cook. making a bean salad is so easy and i used to eat them all the time! also AMAZING source of protein and iron and so much other good stuff)

there are also quite a few sneaky “accidental” vegan foods that you can request from the grocery store that won’t make your parents think: ‘ugh she’s a vegan now.’ some examples: oreos, most cake mixes (there’s lots of recipes online where u just add water and/or soda!!), loads of different chips, many cereals (if u eat them dry), instant ramen (even the ones that say beef and chicken). i know that’s a lot of junk food, but there’s also some healthier(ish) prepackaged meals: this list is good (even though peta is a garbage company i reluctantly admit they have good resources sometimes) (it’s american centric tho but there’s loads of these lists online!). since i’m guessing you don’t go grocery shopping so you aren’t able to look at the labels, you can look it up online and ask your parents to buy it (and you can do this in an indirect way if they’re not cool with it, like ‘hey can u buy the sweet spicy chili doritoes instead of the other flavour next time i like it better’ that kinda thing)

so those are some tips on how to get some food! you should also ask for multivitamins since if you’re basically going to be picking and choosing what your parents put in front of you then you might miss out on crucial vitamins that is otherwise easy for vegans to get if they’re picking their own food.

obviously the ideal thing here would be to get your parents to be on your side!! i have no idea what your relationship with your parents is like so this might not be applicable at all, but in case it is i’ll give you some tips that worked for me.

the best thing that worked for me in the beginning was that i promised i’d cook my own food. as a wee 13 year old, my mom still made my lunch but i asked her for just a plain cheese sandwich and she was okay with that. for dinner, she’d still make the same old side dishes that i could eat, but if she was making chicken, i’d fry up my own tofu or put a couple veggie dogs in the microwave. i don’t think she’d have let me be vegetarian if she had to cook my stuff separate for me. (also, by the time i was vegan i was so used to cooking my own food i just made all my own meals and had gotten good at it by that point!)

at first i just explained to my parents that it was unbearable for me to eat animals. like i literally could not put it into my mouth unless they essentially force fed me. (once again, i was super extra) as my anecdote at the beginning explained, they saw how serious i was lmao. however, my mom did not understand me being vegan until very very recently!!! over the years i’ve casually mentioned various facts about the meat and dairy industry that have opened her mind a bit. and she’s even stopped eating pigs now!! i always find it helpful to say that i do it for multiple reasons: for animals, for the environment, and my health. that usually gets through to people because they realize i’m not just doing some dumb trend or whatever. if at all possible, show them a documentary?? i’m guessing they’d be like ‘hell no’ but just in case (and for your benefit too!) my favourite is cowspiracy (on netflix). it has changed SO MANY meat eaters’ minds!! (the documentary maker was a meat eater too!)

but i realize how engrained this is in certain cultures. my dad is italian and by this point (after 10 years) he realizes that being vegan is a sustainable diet (which he didn’t believe before) but i think he’d rather die than give up meat. and my other side is polish which means their diet is basically carbs and meat and carbs with meat. none of my extended family understand what the hell i’m on about. it’s very frustrating but if you stick with your resolve to not eat meat then they’ll eventually realize you’re serious and maybe make one dish for you at christmas instead of just giving you a piece of bread

if they REALLY are against you going vegetarian, then i obviously absolutely cannot recommend that you starve. you can always go vegetarian/vegan when you move out, and that wouldn’t be your fault at all!! a compromise might be to go pescatarian or even just cut out red meat. (though if you’re anything like me this might not end well haha. it’s worth trying though as a last resort)

i know it’s such a tough situation!!! my sister is vegan too and literally EVERY DAY we text each other about how ignorant and disrespectful our family members are about this. it’s something pretty much every vegan goes through i think, because there are some WACK ideas about eating animals and those who choose not to.

so tl;dr: if you can, try to tell your parents honestly how you feel and try to give them facts. offer to cook your own meals. ask to help your parents cook so you can try to make the food vegetarian. request foods from the grocery store that are a) cheap and/or b) accidentally vegan.

i really hope this helped!!! i was so scared and overwhelmed when i first when vegetarian and had no idea what the fuck i was doing and it makes everything so much worse when your family is unsupportive. i truly wish u the best and please come to me with any follow up questions!!!