How to Live With a Vegan

Living with a vegan can be challenging, whether the animal-lover is your spouse, child or parent. Serious vegans avoid not only meat, dairy and eggs, but also cosmetics or chemical products tested on animals, leather, fur, down and wool. Living with a vegan means showing sensitivity toward a different lifestyle, and it affects everything from the food in your refrigerator to the gifts you give.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Take the vegan diet and belief system seriously. Vegans have good reasons to feel strongly about their viewpoints. For example, if everyone became vegan, resources to end world hunger would materialize and the environment would be cleaner. Animal agriculture is a wasteful way of producing food, because feeding farm animals uses water, land and fertilizer that could be used to directly produce human food. Animal waste is also the main cause of pollution in rivers and groundwater.

2. Recognize that, even if your vegan loved one plans to be the main cook the family, you might need to help out with the cooking. Many vegans are disgusted to even touch raw animal flesh, and preparing meat and dairy in addition to vegan meals can be double the cooking workload—this is a lot to expect of your vegan family member. If you don't like the taste of vegan meals, discuss ways to resolve the issue, and be prepared to compromise. You might sometimes cook non-vegan meals for the non-vegans in your family, or frequently take the family to restaurants offering meals that suit the vegan diet as well as your own tastes.

3. Be careful about the gifts you give your vegan loved one. Most vegans feel strongly that people should stop eating meat because farm animals are abused and exploited. Vegans want to live a cruelty-free lifestyle, so buying a fur coat or genuine wool slippers for your vegan loved one might not get the reaction you're seeking. Vegan cookbooks and vegan gift baskets are great gifts for vegans, but don't buy specifically vegan gifts every time; be both creative and sensitive to the vegan lifestyle when buying gifts.

4. Listen and nod when your vegan loved one talks about the plentiful protein content in vegetables or the inaccuracy of the outdated food pyramid. Genuinely hearing your vegan loved one might sometimes wear on you, especially if you don't agree with your beloved vegan's views, but the health benefits of a vegan diet are proven and keeping an open mind is good for your relationship.

5. Pick your battles if you can't help but debate with your vegan loved one about the benefits of your own meat-eating, milk guzzling lifestyle. Understand that most vegans have done their homework, and you won't offer a valid argument if you don't perform similar research. Study the issues surrounding veganism to know which are really controversial; then your side of the debate might actually have a solid foundation.

6. Take pride in your vegan family member. Even if the lifestyle doesn't agree with you, let your friends know that you consider your vegan loved one to be enlightened rather than weird. No matter how tactful you try to be, your vegan family member can sense when you inwardly ridicule the vegan diet or lifestyle. Find ways to show your vegan loved one that you respect veganism; this demonstrates tolerance and consideration for the person you love.

Tips & Warnings

• Don't expect your vegan loved one to abandon veganism for your lifestyle; it simply won't happen. Most vegans are set in their ways; in fact, many are only willing to date and marry other vegans because they believe that inter-eating relationships are too difficult. Likewise, before moving in with a vegan, make it clear that you are unwilling to convert to any part of veganism—if that is the case, of course.

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