Hey, glad you want to be a considerate, conscientious vegan! You won’t upset anyone as long as you follow these simple rules:

1. Never admit that you are vegan
2. Never talk about veganism
3. When people are talking about meat, eagerly participate
4. Do not eat visibly vegan food in public
5. If offered meat or cheese, eat it without protest
6. Do not cook vegan food if serving others
7. When you see a cow, remark out loud how you want to eat it

That’s about all you need to know to be one of the Good Vegans. Hope this helps!

Honestly I don’t care what you want to eat. It’s your body, you can shove whatever you like into it.

Where vegans become a problem is where they’re being evangelical about their beliefs and trying to force their audience to feel the same shock and horror as they feel when contemplating the meat industry. If all I hear from you is restricted to when I offer you food and ask if you have any dietary requirements, and is of the form “I’m vegan”, that’s absolutely fine. If we’re friends I’ll adjust the menu for you, although you might have to accept it’s only your plate that gets veganified.

You going “eww” and talking about “rotting corpses” or whatever is where it becomes a problem. If I’ve asked, obviously I’ve brought your response upon myself but you should still tone it down for the non-vegans. “I’ve looked into the meat industry and I didn’t like what I saw” would be a good first response; make sure not to release any gory details unless people are really pressing you for that level of detail.

That said, none of this is based on actual experience of offensively evangelical vegans. I’ve heard they exist but haven’t met one yet. I’ve known some people for quite a while before finding out they’re vegan, veggie or whatever.

“What makes a “good vegan”, and how can I be one?”

huh… not eating/consuming animal-related products?

My son is vegan and he makes fun of himself - If you vape, you’re vegan, and you’re in a band; which one do you talk about first? Was funnier a few years ago when people carried around those giant vapes. We harassed him a lot for saying, “i can’t eat that” - well, yes you can, but you choose not to- so, now he’ll say he prefers to avoid animal products. If people ask, be honest and answer succinctly - I’m trying it to see if it makes me feel better, or whatever. The hate isn’t from choosing your own food. It’s from the endless conversations and superior, more informed attitude about it - same as anyone who makes one thing their identity - politics, religion, etc.

Don’t think you can do any ‘better’ than your lactose-intolerant cop-out.

This is going to sound Buddhist AF, but the problem is that in most cases, it’s not the vegans introducing the conflict, but rather this conflict existing within the people who take offense.
They don’t feel steadfast in their morals and often don’t feel confident in their identity or self-worth either, so when someone comes along who does something they perceive as morally superior, then this confronts them with their internal conflict, which makes them feel like they’re being attacked.

So, the two ways to avoid the conflict, as others already suggested, are:

• Never bring up that you’re vegan, or
• Give them a reason why you can do the morally superior thing more easily than them.

That you’re lactose-intolerant is perfect. Especially with many people not understanding what that entails precisely, you can say that you can’t eat many foods anyways, so might as well go vegan. Or that it’s even sometimes easier to just pick the vegan variant, as you’ll know no dairy is in there.
This is still not easy to use as a cop-out. You’ll regularly encounter people who might take offense, and you’ve got basically just two sentences or so, to defuse that situation. This is why many vegans stop caring, if someone wants to be offended. It’s too tiresome to be a people-pleaser.

Yeah I think “evangelical vegans” or “bad vegans” are a sort of caricature made for comedians and then everyone else to punch down on. Sure annoying vegans exist, and so do annoying meat eating people, but diet isn’t necessarily why these people are annoying.

I imagine there’s also an element of defensiveness from meat eaters as well. Even reasonably stating “I don’t eat meat because of the cruelty in the industry and the negative environmental impacts” is implicitly challenging a meat eater to consider those things, which they likely never have. And being faced with the certainty that the vegan is making that statement (the cruelty of the industry and environmental impacts are objective), the meat eater is possibly going to feel like they are being judged or attacked.

Yay for you! Nine year vegan here, I remember saying I would never do it either. But now meat and dairy aren’t even things I think about, let alone miss.

There is no answer that will please everyone. It’s best to treat veganism as a religion, as in an ethical framework that guides your actions. But just like religion, it’s not polite to talk about it nor judge others for believing differently. You’ll absolutely encounter people who feel comfortable for mocking your beliefs, including friends and family, but the best strategy is to smile and say you’d rather talk about something else. You can’t control if others decide to be jerks, but tend your own garden and remember there is no profit in being argumantive back. Eternally change the subject and you’ll rarely be accused of being preachy. Unfortunately there are those who take your meat as an inherent judgement of their own, but that is a dilemma they need to fix themselves.

Having said that, I applaud your choice and urge you to get b-12 supplements. A large chunk of the population is deficient anyways and while you adjust there is a good chance you’ll miss some of the supplements added to meat products that mostly likely were your primary source.

Basically bottle up all the wrong you see in the world because people can’t be bothered to put down their hamburger because it’s soooo delicious. Even though you keep your mouth shut and make incredible vegan food, they still can’t be bothered to change because for some reason people believe animals are beneath them.

Honestly, before I was vegan I never lost my shit whenever I was around my vegan friends so I’ll never understand why people are like this. How hard is it to be like “they have a point” and admit you’re part of the problem?

TL;DR; is don’t be a “good vegan” if you don’t want to, screw the hypocrites.

accept the fact that, even if it works for you, not everyone would be willing to switch to that lifestyle. And that’s ok!

If people ask why you’re vegan, focus on the positives of veganism. I say: the food’s delicious, I feel healthier, and I like animals.

It frames it as something you benefit from, rather than depriving yourself of something.

Most vegan hate is just reactionary and you should disregard it. It’s because vegans force omnivores to confront the reality of where their food comes from, to confront climate science, and to confront your own personal social responsibility. I think it’s very silly to be concerned with being a “good vegan”. If you don’t want to get into arguments then just eat your vegan food and move on. If people take issue with you deciding to eat the food you want to eat, and having boundaries around not wanting to eat certain foods, especially given that these decisions are based on your own moral compass, then they are complete dickheads you should not be around anyway.

I also don’t think there’s anything morally wrong with being a naggy/pushy vegan. I don’t try to convince anyone to go vegan just because I figure if they want to then they will, if there’s resistance then I have better ways to spend my time. If they’re vegan-curious they’re always welcome to ask me about it. I think whether or not you try to make other people go vegan is a personal choice, and a political choice about how to most effectively enact your politics.

I think trying to have a more progressive social circle will help you, because I have honest to god never experienced one of my friends taking issue with me being vegan, and several of my omnivorous friends have confessed to me unprompted that they feel bad about eating animal products and “should” eat more vegan food (I don’t ever even talk about veganism except for just mentioning that I’m vegan when we’re getting food together). Like I said, if they take issue with the food you choose to eat/food you refuse to eat for moral reasons, they are just plain dickheads and you should stop being friends with them.

My sister in law is vegan. She is the most normal person about it I’ve ever met. She doesn’t talk about it unless it comes up in conversation in a normal way.

She doesn’t proclaim it, because its part of who she is it isn’t the whole of who she is. She also understands that other people’s choices are theirs and she doesn’t need to convert them, or defend her own position.

When we have family gatherings, we try to accommodate with food offerings, but she says we don’t need to and always brings her own food and extra to share. This is important because she’s self sufficient and doesn’t expect anybody to adjust their life to match her choices. Likewise, between diets and allergies we as a family just always ensure people know what is in what.

These are just simple examples. My point being, I don’t think of her as vegan. I think of her as my sister in law. Be a normal person and its all good. If its not, then that’s not on you. There are jerk vegans and jerk non-vegans. Don’t be a jerk. Don’t tolerate jerks in return.

Respond to right wing reactionaries who go out of their way to complain about vegans simply with “😇💌Triggered”

There. Now you are the Good Vegan™️

you’re probably going to have better luck asking this in a vegan focused community

People who hate on vegans are really strange.