I wasn’t aware that vegetarianism helped with any of those things?

You don’t sound pathetic, dramatic or ‘pathetically dramatic’.

The burden of knowledge is a heavy one to bear; having the destructive, cruel ignorance of that knowledge thrust in your face; having your sensibilities disregarded and your feelings ignored, trivialised or made fun of; feeling out of place and alone in most social environments all day, every day, is fucking tough.

Try to be strong and beleive in yourself, you are doing a good thing; the right thing. Remember to be happy that you are not like them. Use the pain you feel for the animals to fuel you to help them, however you can. And if you need to cry: just fucking cry, don’t hold it back. I cry a lot and I rarely try to stop myself; why should I? Crying is a genuine (and appropriate) reaction to how we treat animals (and humans, and the planet…); why should we try to curb or dull those feelings? It is lack of empathetic feeling that causes most of the shit we’re crying about. I don’t see it as I am ‘too emotional’, or whatever, more that others have lost touch with their emotions.

How do I deal with it? I rant on here, mostly. I am very lucky to have Gem to rant with in person. Do you have anyone close to you who would listen? I sometimes rant to my mum (if it comes up when we speak, I don’t call her just to shout about stuff). I can’t really realate to her about veganism (she is veggie), but she listens to me and it helps. 

If you don’t feel as though you have anyone in your ‘real’ life, come online! The Tumblr vegan community is super friendly and isn’t the only place vegans visit. A bunch of us are on Facebook, then there is Volentia, the Vegan Forum and a bunch of other places you can go an connect with other vegans.

You can always come and talk to me, too. I am without a PC right now, so getting online for more than a few minutes isn’t always easy but I will reply when I can. Sometimes it is just good to write all the shit in your head out, even if nobody sees it.

Feel free to come off anon, I don’t respond to personal messages publicly and won’t respond to any message publicly if you ask me not to.

This fucking sucks.

Friends don’t think their friends are stupid; friends aren’t rude to their friends about something that is obviously important to them; friends don’t make friends cry, let alone often.

If you don’t think that there is any chance that they will begin to accept you for who you are, even if they don’t ‘get’ veganism: fuck them off.

You just have to make a difference where you can. Every penny you spend eventually leads to cruelty because that is how our society works.

For example: where do you buy any of your products? Do they only stock vegan products? Do they only employ vegans? That money you give them is going into wages to pay non-vegans to buy non-vegan food to sustain themselves to continue going to work to sell you the vegan stuff you buy. Do you have a job? Do you pay taxes? Your government isn’t vegan and they give millions to the meat industry to keep meat cheap and profitable.

You still have to be savvy, like don’t go into McDonald’s to buy a salad and avoid the larger companies and their products. I am still learning about what companies are tied to each other every day and changing what I put my money into accordingly.

Do everything you can with the information you have and never stop looking into the products you buy and the companies behind them.

Most importantly, if you see Capitalism: tell it to go fuck itself.

Animal testing exists to make money, not to advance medicine. The legal requirement that all medications be animal tested is there to protect the financial interests of vivisectors, pharmaceutical companies and their ‘stockists’; just like the meat industry bailouts that come from your tax money.

At the very least, make sure that your medication is vegan: pills usually have lactose in the film coating, and capsules are usually made from gelatin, but there are alternatives.

Again, something I know nothing about but a quick Google search revealed this.

This is not something I knew anything about (and I still don’t, really). But, I did some reading when I got this message and found a whole host conflicting information; a majority of which says that it is not advised, or not possible.

What is interesting about the information I read is that the sources that were saying that it is not possible were (obviously) non-vegan. The sources that went into detail about how it is possible and gave examples were vegan. I did see a few medical sources saying it was possible with intense monitoring and ‘expert help’. I do not have a lot of faith in the established medical community, and don’t take anything I hear from them as fact without looking for counter-information first.

This fits the pattern whenever there is a contested issue in relation to one’s ability to go vegan: most people, through lack of knowledge or effort, don’t even consider how veganism is possible; for any ailment, financial/living situation, even able-bodied etc…

With that in mind: I would usually take the vegan sources as more credible than the non-vegan. There will be more non-vegan sources but the sources from vegans who are living it, I think, count for more.

For the sources mentioned above, you will have to consult Google and have a read around. There are far too many to links, and I am not entirely sure which links would yield the most relative information for you. I have, however, linked some basic information below for you to peruse.

What little I read said that CF sufferers need to consume high calorie, high fat foods and keep an aye on vitamins A, D, E and K and things like calcium, iron, sodium chloride and zinc. Now, these things exist in abundance in non-animal sources. Medical issues usually don’t require you to consume specific foodstuffs, just specific nutrients; and I have never seen how it would make sense for humans to consume ‘food’ that we’re not designed to (food that makes healthy people sick) to remedy an ailment.

I hope this helps.

Oh, P.S. || I don’t do soy either, so no scrambled tofu for me or anything like that. sldkfjlskfj ):                        

Sorry for the delay. This is not something I know all that much about.

I asked a friend who knows a little more about this stuff than I do, who is also gluten-free. She said that she is happy to help. She will need a little more information than this, though, such as what type of sugar: processed, fruit sugar, both?

I will say, though, that limitations on what food you can/will eat are no reason to consume cruel products. I, myself, am severely limited with what I can eat; but there is always a way around it. Just ask around and Google.

This is a truly horrible question. I didn’t even think about rabbits being farmed for meat (but I am not surprised…).

Like I quoted before: “Whoever saves one life, saves the entire world”, and the welfare of the individual cannot be played off against the welfare of the many or even of any other individual (but how do you choose?). But, as a counter point to that; this person pointed out that adopting from a no-kill shelter not only gives an animal a home but it gives another animal a chance by making space at a shelter.

Again, followers: what do you think?

Thank you for the compliment :).

Just skim read this and this, they seem to have a good amount of information.

from a reputed breeder, that only breeds once or twice a year, in order to get a dog we won’t have to pour money into for medical bills, and who will be well-socialized. And then there’s the matter of its food. Their digestion tracts just aren’t good for a plant-dominated diet (it’s shorter, like carnivores). The idea of breeding an animal on purpose that will eat other animals greatly disturbs me. Am I wrong? Is there a point that she has that I’m not seeing? What would you do?

Never buy from any breeder or a ‘pet’ store. Ever. Under no circumstances. If you don’t feel you are in a position to rescue then do not get a dog.

Dogs in shelters are of all different shapes and sizes, with varying levels of health. I would be very surprised if you could not find the dog for you at a shelter.

Talk to the people at the shelter, explain your situation to them. It is no good for the dog to be given a home where their carer cannot afford to care for them properly when things get tough. It is no good for the dog to go back to the shelter when things don’t work out. I don’t know if this is available in all shelters, but a shelter my family got one of our dogs from in the past, they allowed a supervised ‘play time’ with any dog you were interested in to make sure that you ‘clicked’.

I implore you to adopt on a needs basis instead of worrying about what size the dog is or what they look like. Of course, you need to stay within your means for the above reasons; you need to make sure that you are able to give a dog a long term home. Think, first and foremost, about the dog’s welfare instead of trivial superficial matters.

There are also plenty of charities and shelters that require regular donations to help keep the shelter animals that can, for whatever reason, no longer be re-homed. Plenty of these charities will send you updates about the animal you are sponsoring. This is something that my mum always did on my behalf growing up, and is something I continue to do.

As far as I know, dogs can survive perfectly happily on a vegan diet. The thing about commercial ‘pet’ food is that it is just slaughterhouse run-off, roadkill and other shit ground up, it has very little nutritional value. For this reason, manufacturers have to pump it full of the stuff your dog actually needs to survive. Your dog doesn’t give a shit what he is eating, so long as it fills him up and keeps him healthy (put simply); it really doesn’t matter if it’s ground up roadkill or ground up vegetables to him. Vegan dog food is designed to keep your dog healthy and isn’t ground up carcass, so everyone wins!

Hey, I’ve updated the link to an Amazon page where you can purchase the book (it is Amazon.co.uk, though). 

You can also try here, here and here, or just have a Google round for guides. There is plenty of info out there on different sites covering different aspects of veganism.

Sorry it’s taken me so long to answer this.

Only you know how much you can take from him.

I can understand him wanting to ‘stay true’ to his roots or whatever, but when his roots involve extensive overfishing, destruction of environments, decimation of species and the genocide of billions; I would ask him why he wants to stick with that by furthering the destruction.

You know that there is no such thing as ‘close enough’, make sure he knows it.

There are no exceptions, only double-standards.

Excellent. Thanks very much for the input, I hope they see this as they are not on Tumblr (if I recall correctly).

Well, if you don’t have a Tumblr then you have no choice! So, it’s all good :). I don’t mind people being anon, I just think it is weak when people go on anon to insult me.

Just to clarify (and I don’t think you thought this), but: I didn’t mean that you, specifically, don’t give children enough credit to form opinions. So, sorry if that’s how it came across. 

If they have already been exposed to how important it is to treat humans less fortunate than themselves with ethical consideration and fairness, then it’s not much of a leap to extend that to non-humans. Children aren’t going to have as much of a barrier built up about how non-human animals are here purely for us, so you could be onto a winner ;).

I’m sure you’ll be fine with it all, let me know how it all turns out :).