Why Vegans Are So Annoying
Before anyone flips out at the title or the image, let me explain. I myself am a vegan. Though I've only been vegan for a little over roughly two weeks and I initially started it because of health problems, I've been taking that time to educate myself on why it is important to eat a mainly whole foods, plant-based diet and I'm going to share that with you today. And also if you're here because you legitimately want to know why all the vegans you meet seem to be so in-your-face about it, I'll answer that question too.
So the reason I started this diet is because I was having a lot of acid reflux, so much that my throat burned and I vomited almost every day with a side of uncomfortable belching or some gas in my chest that refused to come out. Lovely, I know. I also read that constant acid reflux, which irritates the lining of the stomach and throat, can lead to esophageal cancer. So I went on the alkaline diet. I had no idea what this was at first and I doubt a lot of people really know what it is. The alkaline diet is basically a diet in which you eat foods that have a low amount of acid in them (alkaline is the opposite of acidic). This was to restrict the amount of acid that was coming into my body and therefore reduce the amount of acid reflux and discomfort I was experiencing. A lot of the foods I couldn't eat were meat and processed foods, but I was allowed to consume fish, though the diet was a lot stricter than veganism and limited the amount of greens I consumed as well. So I gave up on the alkaline thing since I hadn't been getting much acid reflux and I was absolutely starving. I adopted veganism instead. I then started watching youtube videos on how to go about being a vegan as well as living a healthy lifestyle and I also started watching documentaries on the truth about the food we're told to eat and how it's affecting us. So that's my personal story. Now, onto the facts.
Vegans are primarily "annoying" because we know that meat, eggs, dairy, and processed foods are so so bad for you and that we want to warn everyone. People often like to write off our warnings as us wanting to convert (which isn't necessarily wrong because if we can convince more people of the facts, then that's fantastic) and they tend to shrug it off. I understand how many people would find this annoying, but it is important to understand why we are doing this.
Animal products are a distinct and proven cause of many diseases and cancers. I'm not just a vegan because I feel bad for animals (though that also plays a part), I am a vegan because I know how prevalent these illnesses are and how people now just consider it normal to be unhealthy and diseased – why is it so normal now to know at least one person who has died of cancer? A lot of people will also disregard the facts because they love the taste of meat and cheese too much. My question to you is, do you really think it's smart to risk your health so that your taste buds can have a party for a little while? Also think of how the consumption of animal products affects our environment: the continuation of meat production wastes water, land, food, and energy. You are also eating whatever those poorly-treated animals are eating, such as growth hormones, toxins, pollution, etc. Meat is 100% not as healthy as "nutrition experts" want us to believe (and cutting out only red meat hardly does anything, since it has the same amount of fat as any other white meat or fish). Just watch Forks Over Knives, Food Choices, Food, Inc., Food Matters, Vegucated, etc. The list is endless and those are all available on Netflix.
Then there's also the matter of knowing where your food comes from. I was vegetarian for a year or so before becoming vegan because I knew in the most general sense that meat is bad for you and that animals shouldn't be killed for our consumption. I vaguely knew of the conditions these animals kept for meat, dairy, and/or eggs are kept in. But after educating myself, I discovered how awful these animals are treated and what they must go through so that they can give us food. And let us not forget about bees and honey. Bees are kept in manmade hives that are smoked and robbed of their honey, in the process, many bees are either killed or traumatized by the smoking process (yes, insects can be traumatized). No matter how the honey is taken, whether it is more humane than the traditional way (like the Flow Hive), it is still stealing the honey away from the bees. Yes the argument in Bee Movie is very real and is not a laughing matter.
Another reason we tell people we're vegan is because we want to make sure there's nothing we don't want to eat in something you're feeding us or so if we go out to eat with you, we're going somewhere that has options for us. I will admit that there's definitely many vegans out there that think themselves better than people who consume animal products, but there are also a lot of us that don't really want to be in-your-face about it – when I first went vegan, I was so self-conscious about talking about it with my friends because I was scared of being labeled as yet another "annoying vegan".
It's ignorant to not listen to the facts about what you're eating. One should educate themselves, and then make a decision on whether or not they would like to continue to eat the same way. I'm not going to hate you if you eat animal products and I'm not going to force you to eat a head of lettuce or a bunch of bananas, I just want to help. I understand those of you who will respond to that with "I don't want or need your help," but I just think it's the smart thing to do to know where your food comes from and what its effects on your body are.
Okay, well that's my argument. I don't know if that helped at all or strengthened (or weakened) our case or if it just seemed like a bleeding heart ramble, but that's what I wanted to say for the most part (I never claimed to be a professional). Please try to check out those documentaries if you're at all interested, they're very educational and eye-opening. Thanks for reading. Vegan out.