I am from the south too, and went through the same thing, my new best friend one time, didn’t know I was veg and we went to a pizza place, I had no intentions of eating, but she ordered a mini meat lovers, and asked if it wanted a piece I told her no I was veg and she gave me the look that says, ewwww your gross and a freak! It made me feel bad that the person I called friend would be so rude to my beliefs… needless to say, later on she turned out to be a not so best friend, lying to me about things and making up different stories everytime I tried talking to her about them. people like her that has never heard of such a thing, or knew anyone before being veg will always think it weird, unless they are just an overall accepting nice awesome person, they need to be informed, and not in the typical animals are killed for meat kind of way, in the kind of way that someone who thinks it being okay to eat meat will be open minded to, like explaining what made you want to go veg and then the benefits of it, and how much it means to you and how there are better options for animals the planet and our bodys then to eat meat.

Another point to make with the dairy issue is that a lot of humans are lactose intolerant. Once a being is out of the “toddler” stage, they don’t consume milk anymore, except for humans. What I heard from one of my friends is that it’s a genetic quirk NOT to be lactose intolerant, though I don’t think that’s the whole story. I’ve heard it has to do with abstaining from dairy and then going back to it and your body just can’t digest it anymore… Either way, the main point is that we are the only animal to drink milk as an adult, and honestly, it’s a little unnatural.

Thanks guys! (: You really helped me with this situation, kudos! :3

@Dagmar, milk doesn’t give people manboobs. That’s what omnivores and vegetarians say about soy milk, we’re just flinging manboob propaganda back and forth. It’s just genetics, environmental factors, and body fat content.

There’s nothing wrong with anyone’s body shape and we shouldn’t use fat/body shaming to sell AR.

Milk gives people manboobs with all the hormones and steroids too.

Compare cows to humans: we can only produce milk when we’re expecting or have given birth and cows are no different. Plus ask them where they think veal comes from?
Also, get them to name any other animal that can produce milk randomly (ie. without being pregnant), I bet they can’t name any because NO animal can do this.

Pretty much every AR group has a info leaflet/booklet on dairy. Print some out and carry them with you ^^ Even if they still disagree with you after at least they have been informed about it and can’t argue with facts.

Educate the masses

Carry a few leaflets or informational pages with you if you’d like. All mammals must give birth in order to lactate. They can’t just argue with scientific fact by saying “I don’t believe that”.

I am a vegan, but most people in the south don’t understand or don’t know what a vegan is… When I tell them that I don’t eat nor drink dairy, they look at me like I’m insane and ask, “What’s wrong with dairy?” When I explain, they either tell me “I’m only getting half the story”, or “A cow doesn’t have to be pregnant to give milk.” Please help with my problem I am
having …. Thanks!