Just another reason people hate me...

People that are not vegans hate vegans. It is a fact, I know this. When you quit eating dairy to help your baby while you are nursing, you are a hero, when you quit eating meat because of a little information in a book, you are a moron.

I can now say that I know what it is like to be disliked, despised, judged and unfriended because of a choice- a choice about food.

I have actually been told "oh, your a vegan, and I thought we could have been friends?!" No, I am not kidding.

I am not sure if people are afraid that I am going to drag them down to a basement and make them eat asparagus? Or they are worried that when THEY are eating meat I am sitting in judgement of them? I think it is the latter. I don't think most people fear vegetables, I just think they fear the lack of animal!

I don't care if they eat 10 steaks and a pound of butter! I just don't want them to make me eat meat, anymore that they want to stop eating it! It is funny, we both want respect for our differences, and we don't want to be judged or hated.

As I think of the dichotomy of this, I wonder if this fear of difference can be taken to another level of fear and judgement.... and prejudice? Do people have prejudices because they fear becoming the "other," or because they are afraid of losing themselves, their culture, their "self" to the other?

Are heterosexuals prejudice against homosexuals because they are afraid of not being heterosexual, or because they are afraid of losing their jurisdiction over sexuality and the laws that surround such matters?

Are whites prejudice against blacks because they are afraid of not being white anymore, or because they are afraid they will lose their power, their jurisdiction? Will "they just end up changing everything?" Will the blacks make the whites only eat vegetables... so to speak?

I understand it all. My son hates that I am a vegan, he hates that we are (thus far) raising our 2 year old as a vegan. I think it makes him angry that I have given up something, that I am not like him anymore, that this house has changed in some way? I still make meat for everyone else in the family, no one else has to "be like me." Is he afraid that this little vegan will mess everything up for everyone else? That I will use my power and ruin the way life has always been?

It is funny when my kids ask me what I miss most about meat or dairy, my answer is usually "nothing." I like being a vegan, I like all the new foods I now try, I like the fact that now I know what (almost) all those crazy vegetables are at the store.

Being a vegan is a choice. I can hide it, I wasn't born a vegan and nobody can tell I am a vegan when I walk into a room and to be perfectly honest, when I went to my husband's class reunion in Iowa, I didn't tell a soul (I figured the crap I would get wouldn't be worth it).

When someone is different, people want to ask them questions. They wonder what it's like, wonder "how I could possibly not eat meat and ICE CREAM!" I think that if we were truly honest for a day, these are the types of questions we would ask people that are different from us who DON'T have a choice. I am sure that is why Chris Rock's documentary about "black hair" caused such a stir. It is so much easier to outwardly question, hate and verbally accost a person's differences when that difference is by choice.

I can admit it, sometimes I want to go live in a little vegan world. I want to live where all the restaurants have vegan items that aren't spaghetti. I want to live in a place where people don't get frustrated with me and say things like "WELL WHAT DO YOU EAT THEN?!" when you are eating at their house. Or a place where every salad on menu ISN'T covered with shrimp, chicken or the occasional steak.

My husband sees the disgust. When we go out to dinner and I ask the server "does that have dairy in it?" and I feel like I have to apologize for being me. Like I said, people feel it is ok to be outwardly disgusted when you have chosen to be different. Now I just tell them I am allergic to dairy...I was born like this...ya know?