Guides Veganism

How to Encourage Your Loved Ones to Go Vegan Without Pissing Them Off!

Once you become a vegan, it’s normal to want everyone around you to be vegan as well because you want to end animal suffering once and for all!

Convincing those closest you to become vegan can be one of the toughest obstacles in your vegan journey. There’s definitely a right way and a wrong way to go about encouraging loved ones to become vegan.

If you do it the wrong way, you’ll end up annoying your loved ones and making them even more closed off to veganism. You don’t want that!

Here are some ways to encourage loved ones to go vegan that will not piss them off and can actually convince them to make an ethical change.

Introduce Veganism by Focusing on Yourself

The best approach when first discussing veganism with loved ones is to talk about yourself. That might sound totally egotistical but it’s not! By talking about your vegan journey, your loved ones will better understand your point of view and will begin to understand what veganism is.

Why did you go vegan? Talk about your vegan journey with your partner or family. If they really love you, they’ll be interested in hearing about why you made such a life-changing decision even if they don’t agree with veganism just yet.

Remember, this is the introductory phase. The goal here is to introduce the concept of veganism, explain what it means and why you became vegan.

Don’t try to convince any loved ones to become vegan at this stage and definitely don’t start telling them how awful they are for not being vegan!

You just want them to open up their mind to the idea of veganism and to understand your side of things.

Educate Loved Ones in a Fun Way (Not Pushy)

Make educating your loved ones fun. Don’t be pushy! Say something like, “Hey, there’s a really cool documentary I want to watch, do you want to watch it with me?” Or, “I’m reading an eye-opening book about factory farming. I know you love to read; do you want to read it too so we can discuss it together?”

For movies, you can recommend Earthlings, Dominion, Lucent, Cowspiracy, Land of Hope and Glory, Cow, The Cove, and Blackfish. Peta has a more comprehensive list of movies for kids and adults that will help teach people empathy and about animal rights issues.

If your special someone or family member enjoys reading or listening to audiobooks, they can read Animal Liberation by Peter Singer, In Defense of Animals by Peter Singer, When Animals Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, and They All Had Eyes: Confessions of a Vivisectionist by Michael Slusher. There is also a great list of animal rights books on Goodreads.

For those who have the attention span of a fruit fly, these vegan YouTube channels have excellent, SHORT, vegan content!: Earthling Ed, Last Chance For Animals, Farm Sanctuary, Sea Shepherd, and The Cranky Vegan.

When you come across an article or video about veganism or about how factory farming is causing climate change, share it with your partner or family so they can see all the different reasons there are for becoming vegan.

Food! Food! Food!

If you can introduce delicious vegan dishes that your significant other or family member loves, then you will be one step close to convincing them to go vegan. The main reason why meat eaters think vegan food sucks is because they’ve only tried vegan burgers, salads, and pizza. Vegan Western food tends to be bland and meat eaters will always compare vegan Western dishes to the non-vegan versions of those dishes.

There are so many countries around the world that have delicious vegan cuisine. Countries like Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, China, Mexico, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Israel, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon, and India have incredible vegan options.

Hop onto Happy Cow to find local restaurants that serve vegan food from other countries. Ask your loved ones if they want to try a new vegan restaurant with you. You can also order delivery and encourage them to try some of your food. Be adventurous and try something new.

If you can’t cook yet, this is a great time to learn!

Making awesome vegan food and have your partner or family taste test your creations. You can also ask your loved ones to take a vegan cooking class with you or help you out in the kitchen as you try your hand at making new vegan dishes.

Visit a Farm Sanctuary

Taking a trip to a farm sanctuary with your loved ones will help teach them empathy for farm animals and see things from their perspective. If there isn’t a farm sanctuary near you, some farm sanctuaries post videos on YouTube and IG.

Challenge Loved Ones to Veganuary!

Veganuary is growing more popular every year with 629,000 people signing up in 2022! More people are showing compassion for animals and are seeing the health and environmental benefits of going vegan. Encouraging loved ones to try out veganism for a month will seem more doable for them than asking them to do it for the rest of their life. This is a great way for them to dip their toes into veganism.

What if your Loved One Is Just Too Stubborn or Combative?

It’s important to realize that you may not be able to convince those closest to you to become vegan. They need to make that decision for themselves. All you can do is educate them as much as you can and answer any questions they might have.

If they simply refuse to become vegan or ignore your attempts to encourage them, don’t be discouraged. By simply being vegan around them, you’re normalizing veganism and planting the seeds for them to maybe one day make that switch later.

If someone in your life is being really negative or too argumentative, it’s best to distance yourself from them. You should not have negative people in your life. People can disagree respectfully, but if they don’t respect you, then they do not truly love you.

You do not need to be around those kinds of people.

It can be especially difficult if your significant other refuses to go vegan despite all your attempts to show them why it’s important to you. You might need to reassess the relationship and see if you can continue being with someone who isn’t vegan. If you can still continue the relationship with them, that’s totally fine.

Only you can make that decision. Listen to your instincts.

You might be tempted to give your loved one an ultimatum by saying you will leave them or cut them off if they don’t go vegan. Forcing someone to go vegan or using guilt or shame is really the worst way to get someone to go vegan.

If you use negative tactics, they will see veganism as a punishment rather than a lifestyle that will make their life and the lives of other animals better. They are also more likely to be a vegan for only a short time instead of making a lifelong commitment.

Remember, you’re not alone in your frustrations and challenges when trying to convince those closest to you to care about animals and stop contributing to their suffering.

Being a vegan in a “meaty” world is tough, but it’s worth it because you’re helping make this world more peaceful, empathetic, and loving. Simply by existing as a vegan, you are making a powerful statement and changing the world.

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