So freaking many dilemmas

[Mom2vegan]

What do people do if they want to become vegan and have very busy lives and don't have time to cook? I just signed up for some Purple Carrot boxes. They contain all the stuff for vegan meals, premeasured, but it's over $70 for 3 meals for two people and you still have to cook the stuff and wash all the dishes. I'm thinking at least I'll get an idea what to buy and maybe figure out some very quick ways to prepare meals. I'm just not a cook. I like to throw a sandwich together and be done with it. I did order some of that Huel stuff - it's vegan meal substitute shakes.

I think some of the vegan activists would make much better use of their time coming up with vegan fast food and inexpensive easy meal plans than they do being activists. They'd save a lot more animals if they would help non-vegans learn to eat vegan rather than pitching guilt trips and letting minks loose in the woods. Seriously. My son is a vegan activist. He'd save more animals making me some freakin food than he does going online and trying to make people feel guilty!

And then there's the organic garden. The bugs. I was out there removing caterpillars from my brocolli and stink bugs and their eggs from my squash the other day. I killed hundreds of bugs. I had to take hundreds of lives to grow organic vegetables. None of those bugs would have even been born if I didn't have a garden. Is that good or bad? The cows wouldn't be born if we didn't raise them... I don't eat hundreds of cows per day. I'm killing more animals growing a garden than eating meat! How many bugs were killed for my Purple Carrot meals and Huel? I bet chemical agriculture kills less bugs than organic agriculture........because the chemicals keep the bugs away and keep the eggs from hatching so there are less bugs to kill...... bugs ARE every bit as sentient as cows and pigs and fish and birds, who I know are every bit as sentient as us.....and that makes me wonder. I mean....spiders! What's more amazing than spiders? I LOVE spiders. And ants - I feel bad every time I kill an ant. They have whole entire complex societies, and graveyards and everything and when I dig in my garden sometimes I disturb their communities. Of course, when cows are walking in their fields they probably step on ants...so....

And then there are my horses. My horses LOVE me and I love them. They enjoy going for long rides through the woods. I put their manure in my garden. My son is vegan and he says having horses is animal exploitation and so is manure in the garden. They certainly don't seem exploited to me. They have 10 acres and all they can eat, awesome vet care, brushing and grooming, hoof care, snuggles, carrots, watermelon, and they go on fun trips that they very clearly enjoy. They come running when they see me coming. But that's different than killing animals to eat.

I just.....I've tried to go vegan before and it's so hard and then I think it's pointless because I'm going to be killing animals no matter what I do.

Just venting. I really don't want to contribute to suffering.....it seems impossible not to.....but my vegan son won't let my grandbabies visit me so I guess if I go vegan I'll be reducing MY suffering. Right?

I searched out this forum in the hopes that there are others with the same questions and dilemmas.....maybe transitioning but thinking "does it really make a difference?"

 

[Mom2vegan]

I heard about these buddhist monks whos lives are committed to not causing suffering. They're very careful not to step on any ants and they don't kill any bugs indoors. They would eat as little food as humanly possible so as not to cause any suffering. They got bed bugs really bad and they'd taken vows to never kill anything and the bugs just ate them up....I don't remember what they finally did. Abandoning their home would have led to the deaths of thousands of bed bugs, because then the bugs wouldn't have anything to eat, but letting them die would prevent the birth of more bed bugs that would eventually die.

Several years ago my husband and I decided that we would not contribute to the suffering of animals, by raising our own meat, milk and eggs and raising and killing the animals humanely. I don't know if that reduced the overall suffering in the world or not. We realized there's really no 100% humane way to kill any animal and grew to love the animals. We had milk goats and only bred them once and let their babies nurse until they were weaned, because we thought it was mean to take the babies away from the mamas. That did work out well enough. We milked the goats while they were nursing their babies and they produced more milk so we just fed them more food to make up for it, and then we were able to continue milking them long after the babies stopped nursing. The goats didn't mind it and enjoyed jumping up on the milk stand and eating while we milked them, but then we realized that if we bred them we might eventually end up with babies that nobody wanted as pets and we'd have to stop breeding the goats before we got overran....milking them was fun though and the goats were SUPER sweet.

I don't think I'll transition to veganism. I'll just learn to cook really good vegan meals and if my son ever talks to me again I'll have something to serve him and his family. But I don't think it's good at all to eat commercially raised animals butchered inhumanely. But I don't want to raise my own animals and kill them. So yeah maybe I will transition.

 

[Kellyr]

Welcome

That's a lot going on in your two posts. And a lot of those are questions we all ask ourselves.

I am sorry to hear that your son is denying you time with your grandchildren. I'm sure in his mind he's doing the right thing, but I understand it sure hurts on your end.

It sounds like your son wants you to transition to veganism in his time-frame under his rules. I'm not sure how fair that is to you, but it does sound like you really want to try to compromise.

In that vein, do the best you can with what you've got now. You're already making a huge impact by the simple action of not contributing to the inhumane suffering of factory farm animals.

There are actually LOTS of vegan "fast food" options available. But yes, if you're unwilling to make the food yourself, then it's going to get expensive - you're paying for the convenience of having someone else make the meal for you versus doing the labor yourself.

Many chain restaurants out there offer vegan options or you can ask the waitstaff for substitutions. Places like Chipotle have vegan options, too. The frozen entree aisle of your local grocery store has plenty of vegan-friendly foods like Morningstar Farms products, Amy's frozen entrees (read the labels, some of her stuff is vegetarian-lacto/ovo), etc.

So, you're not at a complete standstill there. You just have to take some time researching your options and the web is definitely a great place to get lots of information.

There's a whole discussion in another forum topic going on right now about insects. Feel free to check it out and maybe some of the responses there can help you draw your own conclusions.

I hope the actions you are currently taking get recognized by your son as genuine effort on your part and that he lightens up on his restrictions so you can see your grandchildren. There may be some other underlying family dynamics going on there, however, as to why he's making the decisions he is. Hopefully you can all sit down and have a calm discussion about it.

 

[veganDreama]

Hello and Welcome.

As a Vegan I don't do much cooking either. Just stick things in the oven or the minigrill.
I make a curry soup simply by chopping up vegetables and opening tins of mixed beans and putting them all in the blender. I make enough for at least 4 portions so I don't have to do it every day.

I also buy 'wicked' meals (Tesco, UK) and also Amy's kitchen meals too.

Sometimes I just make myself salad and humus sandwiches or eat out.

I don't know the dilemma about killing insects. I didn't realise that's how it's done because I live in a flat and don't grow my own food. But I'm sure if you go vegan you will be responsible for less animal deaths.

Also I hope you get to see your grandchildren. Maybe you could be really cheeky and ask your son to cook you vegan meals in exchange for going vegan.

 

[Mom2vegan]

Thanks for the suggestions for more meals to buy, veganDreama.

I had actually offered to buy all of the food for both families and my daughter-in-law would do all of the cooking, once they moved home to KS from MI. They have more time than money, I have more money than time. They thought it was a graet idea but then changed their mind about moving back to KS. Maybe they will move back eventually.

I just cooked my first meal from Purple Carrot and I'm kind of proud of myself. Collard green enchiladas. They're good. Very filling for low a low calorie meal. Plus I bought Huel powder to make vegan protein shakes. So between the Purple Carrot and the Huel I have 2 vegan meals per day .

I keep thinking about the insect thing and I guess it's not a matter of how many living beings we cause to die, it's about how many living things' lives we ruin. The insects have their own lives, in the "wild" of my garden, doing what they want to do before I have to kill them. They've often mated already. Yes - the caterpillars are babies and so I have to kill baby bugs but most of the bugs are adults or still eggs. They're not raised in cages and exploited. They die quickly without being placed in trucks and driven to slaughter houses. So I think it's more ethical to be vegan even if the total # of lives taken is actually higher than if we're not vegan.

 

[veganDreama]

Well done for cooking your first vegan meals. It should get easy once you get used to it.

I'm sorry to hear your family aren't moving to be near you any more.

 

[Mom2vegan]

Wow I just made the millet vegetable fatoosh from Purple Carrot. This stuff is fantastic. They say each recipe is enough for 2 servings. It's much more than my husband and I could ever eat in one meal. I'm calling it four servings and having a beer with it. Yum.

 

[veganDreama]

Glad you are doing well. Keep it up!

 

[Emma JC]

Well done! your determination, despite your misgivings is amazing.

I can tell you that the single thing that was helped me the most, transitioning, was watching YouTube videos of "what I eat in a day" by vegan YouTubers who eat a whole food plant based diet. For the most part they are simple ingredients and simple to prepare and they usually have a "fridge tour" and a "cupboard tour" so that you can see what they keep stocked up on so that they can put something together quickly. Many also have videos of how they prepare a number of meals at a time so that they only have to prepare meals once or twice a week.

For fast food check in your supermarket for the section that sells the Gardein products and the other similar vegan foods as you can keep them in the freezer for those times you just don't feel like making something, other than rice, from scratch.

All the best in your journey and hope you get to spend time with your grandbabies soon!

Emma JC

ps Here is a link to the forum's favourite YouTubers
https://veganforum.org/threads/vegan-youtuber.2383/#post-12204

 

[ap1989]

Use the time you do have to cook to make things in bulk. You can make really healthy meals such as bean chillis and sweet potato, chick pea and lentil carry in bulk and then freeze in portions to see you through the week.
If you find becoming vegan means you need longer to prepare food it obviously means you were living off convenience food before which isn’t good for you vegan or not.

 

[veganDreama]

Use the time you do have to cook to make things in bulk.

Yes, that's a good idea.