@kelseyr2 yea, that’s definitely true. i’ve been seeing the recommendations to look at recipes we can eat and found a lot of tasty looking ones on here. hopefully she’s not too scared to eat it!! thanks for your advice

@hakred thank you! yea, i’ve brought food with me from my dads before and it works because she takes it as a personal offense to her motherhood haha so that usually brings some attention to her lack of support. yea, i’m really grateful for having my stepmom in my life, she’s a HUGE help it’s nice i at least have support when im at their house thank you for your feedback!

@kelseyr2 yea, that’s definitely true. i’ve been seeing the recommendations to look at recipes we can eat and found a lot of tasty looking ones on here. hopefully she’s not too scared to eat it!! thanks for your advice

@hakred thank you! yea, i’ve brought food with me from my dads before and it works because she takes it as a personal offense to her motherhood haha so that usually brings some attention to her lack of support. yea, i’m really grateful for having my stepmom in my life, she’s a HUGE help it’s nice i at least have support when im at their house thank you for your feedback!

I always had the same problem with my mom, I brought food with me when I visited and still do. I recommend that you just go at your own pace. Congrats on your decision to go veg*n by the way! It’s great that you have a more experienced vegan to play such a big role in your life, she can help to guide you.

It’s hard when you live at home and you don’t have the support of your parents. My parents supported me going vegetarian in high school (my mom more so than my dad) but even so, when I brought up veganism that didn’t go over too well. It’s tough when you’re not paying for the groceries – but the best way to do it is to find simple recipes your mom will enjoy as well. Avoid recipes with dairy substitutes – that can get expensive, and I can imagine your mom arguing that veganism is expensive, which it doesn’t have to be.

@styna oh man, i’m so sorry to hear about your dad.. that’s good though that he’s gotten to know you really do know what you’re talking about. but it sounds like you had it rough over there. thats awesome about your mom though!! i can’t even get over that that’s great
that’s a really good point, using food that isn’t “fake” if only to keep them from being scared of it. i’ll never begin to understand the butter thing lol i ate it for like two years before i went veggie because my stepmom had it in the house and never knew it wasn’t dairy-based
thank you sooo much for all this help you’ve given me, honestly it’s made me feel a whole lot better like less closed in

Actually, yeah my mom was always pretty supportive and is trying to go vegan herself – but I was living with my dad and stepmother at the time – they were raised by farmers and hunters and were not happy about it at all lol.
But there are so many options that wouldn’t even really be considered a replacement. They are just things people eat all the time without even knowing they are vegan.
Most spaghetti sauces, unless made with meat and/or cheese are vegan. Spanish rice (crazy sodium levels, but so good -.-).
My favorite at the moment are Chung’s Spring Rolls from the frozen foods section. They are vegetable spring rolls, and accidentally vegan. SUPER DELICIOUS.

I totally understand what you mean with her not wanting to try the replacements though. I never was able to get my dad to try tofu, faux meats, or anything of the sort, until he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and his nutritionist recommended going vegan, basically telling him all the health-related things I had been talking about for ages. She actually recommended a raw-food, juice-heavy diet, but he refused. And after claiming to hate every single vegan replacement I got for him (seriously tried almost everything.) he decided he still wanted to eat “normal” food.
Some people simply -will not- change – but after he overheard many conversations between myself and his nutritionist, he accepted that I knew what I was talking about and never again questioned my knowledge of nutrition or that veganism was an unhealthy diet.

I call shenanigans on the butter though. IT TASTES EXACTLY THE SAME lol.
My dad had actually been using vegan butter without even knowing it. Smartbalance olive oil butter, or whatever it is. It helps lower cholesterol. It’s not marketed towards vegans, but it happens to be vegan, tastes just like butter (or at least what I remember butter tasting like o.o) and is way cheaper than earth balance.

Probably one of the best things you can do is focus on fruits, veggies, grains, nuts, seeds, beans, and legumes. Things that haven’t been processed to look and taste like other things. That way it can be looked at simple as food instead of trying to trick your mom’s brain into thinking she is eating something other than what she is. So it wont be “it looks like a hot dog, but I know it’s not.” It will just be “this is a salad.” “these are beans.” “this is vegetable stew.” etc.

@nomeatnodairynoproblem I completely agree for sure. that’s great that your family dropped that as well, thats awesome. thank you for your help, really made me have a bit more hope

More than anything, I think it’s an issue of them not wanting to admit that consuming dead animals (and animal excretions) is wrong and that they raised you eating stuff you shouldn’t have been eating.
It helps if you can manage to make them feel as though they are not to blame but rather the evil meat & dairy industry is to blame for duping them; for making them believe they were supposed to feed you meat & dairy products.

Every one of my family members who was against me dropping meat from my diet has now dropped meat (or meat and dairy) from their diet.
Not only will you be helping yourself and the animals, there’s a good chance you’ll also end up helping the physical and mental health of the people around you.

@styna for sure that’s nice your mom was supportive in letting you be able to take part in spaghetti night, super cute! my mom won’t even taste my food though if it’s not “real” (soy milk, egg subs, non dairy butter/cheese) when I’ve brought in vegan options to test the waters. I’ll just have to see, thank you for your help! :)

@veggie4lifegurl hmm, I can see where you’re coming from. I know it will be difficult, so I suppose I should stick to this a bit longer. hopefully my mom will come around in the meantime. thank you for taking the time to help me!!

I think it all depends on how old you are. I was vegetarian for 7 years before I became vegan (I’ve been one for a year) and I’m 21. It’s a little easier for me since my mom is also vegetarian, but the rest of my family is not. I think you need to vegetarian for a while longer before you switch over to being vegan. To be honest, it’s a very difficult change and requires a lot of effort and willpower to stay healthy. Salads are always easy to make though I believe you can do it! Good luck!

exactly what @trae93 said.
Are there certain recipes your mom is fond of that she makes often?
Look into veganising them to show her that vegan food can be just as delicious and “healthy” (healthier, as we know ) as omni food.
I was 17 when I went vegan, and while my family was completely against it – a simple change of sauce allowed us to all still take part in spaghetti night every week

@trae93 thank you, that makes a lot of sense

Everyone in my family hated my decision to become vegan. I’ll admit that it was a little bit easier for me because I was 17 and working, but I’ve been working since I was like 11 so I don’t know that that fact changes much. Anyways, this decision isn’t about your family, especially when you obviously feel so strongly about it. Your mother can’t force you to eat anything you don’t want to, she’ll eventually have to buy you stuff you’ll eat. My advice is to find a lot of good recipes to try because that’s what got my mother excited. Good luck!

I’ve been a vegetarian for almost two months. I finally started after wanting to be one for eight years (half my life) and decided to just do it and ignore the consequences from my family, because after finally doing my research I was disgusted and couldn’t live with myself anymore if I ever touched a piece of meat again.

I’ve made this change with a lot of negative response from my mother. She ridicules me and makes it difficult for me to eat. She’s just very nasty to me and tries to trick me into eating meat all the time.

Since the day I did that research, I’ve wanted to be vegan. But my stepmother, vegetarian now for years and vegan for two years, as well as my dad advised I start out vegetarian and see where my health goes, as well as my mother’s reaction, and go from there.

I can’t stand not being vegan anymore, I just feel so much guilt. BUT, I’m afraid I won’t be able to eat when at my mother’s house, and I’m also afraid of the reactions I’ll have from my whole family. I’m not allowed to have a job and am closely monitored, so it’s pretty hard for me to make money to go out and buy my own food.

So, what should I do? Should I just go vegan and not say a word, go vegan and inform my family (my dad and his wife will surely notice, but not my mother for a while), or suck it up, feign ignorance, and stay vegetarian until I move out?