Vegan on vacation — will the holidays make my veganism hard?
Don’t mind me while I pack my almond milk, tofurkey, and potatoes.
I’m heading to New Jersey early in November to visit family before the holidays start since I won’t be able to once they hit. This will be my first time back home as a newly vegan. Which I am very content with but what I haven’t figured out is how to turn down my mother when she offers me coffee, pastries, and an early thanksgiving dinner full of ingredients I just don’t eat anymore.
As a new vegan I know what I am suppose to do, I’m supposed to say no thank you to the dairy, the meats, the animals, but as I’ve learned recently through my peers, that just might be easier said than done.
So how do you do it? Vegans, vegetarians, and the like? How do you manage large family gatherings eating food with those who just don’t eat as you do?
I wasn’t always vegan. I literally quit meat cold turkey.
Now, this isn’t my first time having to eat differently than my family. In high school, after taking me to a doctor and nutritionist, my mother was recommended to feed me only certain meals. You see I became obese over a summer and my prescription was a severe diet change. Mostly veggies, protein, little carbs. That’s probably the first time I ever heard anyone call food by their classifications. During this phase of my life, which developed over the course of a decade, I had to watch my family eat like normal humans while I was subjected to rabbit food.
Even earlier, before I became a teenager, I would get the worst stomach cramps after eating. Moving at all was impossible. Long story short after a trip to the doctor and some Metamucil I had learned that dairy just doesn’t agree with me. To help me out my mother switched us out to 2 percent milk and sometimes skim milk which the family didn’t like and I felt the blame for. She compromised when she could by buying a half gallon of each but I missed having whole milk. It took a while to get used to eating cereal with something that tasted like cloudy water.
Jumping back to the present, I’ve only officially been vegan for three months. And although I’ve had regular diet changes spanning throughout my life I’m still torn on what the proper protocol is here. Or rather I’m torn on whether my family, who have been eating the same way for almost their entire lives, should accommodate my new veganism or should I accommodate instead? Doesn’t it make more sense for it to fall on me? Me, who am already used to having to change?
Well maybe you’re thinking what’s the big deal? Just make an extra grocery trip. But my point for being vegan isn’t just to morally reject the exploitation of animals or the fear of zoonotic diseases but to reject the amount of waste we create as individuals, as a society. Why would I then go out and buy food I already own at home, and why would I ask my mother to purchase food she will never use again? Now ideally I would love for my mother to typically buy vegan options but that’s not her diet, or the family’s diet, never has been and probably never will be.
What makes this even tougher is that we will be sharing a large holiday dinner. If you’ve googled vegan holiday options, that pretty much just means veggies.
Not too long ago I had a conversation with one of my bosses who had been vegan for six months before letting veganism go. When I asked him why, he said he was travelling a lot and visiting family often. Family who didn’t eat like he did. Locations that didn’t always carry vegan options. He said eventually it became too much of a hassle to go out and buy separate foods, not to mention costly, and wasteful. But most importantly he realized it was just easier to compromise his veganism in order to share quality time with his family.
Now my family isn’t the closest bunch, we don’t cry when we don’t speak for a while, or share our feelings unless we’re drunk, and maybe not even then. But we do treasure family time during holidays especially when we haven’t seen each other in awhile. And just like any other traditional family we create those memories around food.
So I’m back to wondering whether or not I should just call my mom and ask her to make a trip to the grocery store if she plans on being a generous host. Which given the fact that she’s pretty much had to do this for me all my life, it doesn’t seem fair to have her worry over it now. Except I know what my mother will say when I turn down her coffee, turkey, mac and cheese, and even pumpkin pie. She’ll tell me it’s not a problem, get frustrated because she won’t know what to buy, then ask if it wouldn’t be too bad to have the veganism take a short vacation while I’m visiting. Or she’ll go and buy something she thinks is vegan, but clearly it’s not, and I’ll just eat it rather than point it out. Or finally she will buy one small side dish that is vegan and think that dish alone balances eating all the other non vegan options.
Honestly though, my mother would accommodate to my needs in a heartbeat but at what cost? Buying extra food? Listening to my older brother ask why I’m not eating, or have eaten too little? Have my mother once again go out of her way to not just make and buy vegan options but eat them alongside me as well?
I now understand why my boss is no longer vegan. Who’s responsible for accommodating new food lifestyles when you’re the guest on vacation with family?
If I was visiting family in Las Vegas, would this even be a question?
Ugh. I guess I’ll just stick with rice and beans. Don’t mind me while I pack almond milk, tofurkey, and potatoes.
But I should call my mommy to buy me vegan pumpkin pie.
